I Knew You'd Be Our Angel
by Anath Tsurugi
Summary: He'd never before been afraid of Gabriel's smile, had never feared it, only loathed it in silence. Now, as the archangel approached him with that lying, hideous smile in place, purple eyes alight with deadly intent...now he feared that smile. "Behold, thou hast conceived in thy womb, and shall bring forth a child. For with God nothing shall be impossible."
1. Perhaps I Had a Wicked Childhood

(A/N) So...apparently October is pregnancy loss awareness month. Did you know that? I didn't know that. I wanted to have a few more chapters of this one written out before I started posting, but then I decided I wanted to post as close to October as I could. So, full disclosure up front, this story is going to deal with the loss of a pregnancy, but also with the successful one following that loss, since I'm going to tackle this story in a somewhat non-linear fashion. I dunno if it's gonna work, but hey, nothing to do but go for a drive and see where we end up, right?

**I Knew You'd Be Our Angel**

_Chapter 1: Perhaps I Had a Wicked Childhood_

**Now**

They had just returned from the Lupa Silvia galaxy when Crowley first noticed it.

Lupa Silvia wasn't even a pinprick of light from the Milky Way's neck of the woods. Likely it would be centuries yet before humans discovered it. But next to Alpha Centauri, it was one of his favorite places away from little old Earth. He supposed it could be said they'd been on something like a holiday, but it was difficult to think about things in terms like that after everything...

...in the shambles of a life half-ruined...

But none of what had happened was visible in the little cottage that he and Aziraphale returned to on this chilly spring night. Really, the place looked as if they hadn't been away at all...as if nothing had happened. For four months, their little haven had gone undisturbed while everything else had crumbled around it...

_...he screamed in agony as Uriel tore into his wings, nearly rending his true form atom from atom. But it wasn't __**him**_ _the archangel was trying to get at..._

_...the feel of power swelling beneath his own, great and terrible, but so warm and so gentle..._

_...the stars on fire, burning with the wonder and ruin of Creation, but not one of those stars burned more fiercely than the rage in Aziraphale's eyes as he broke through the cosmic cluster..._

_...the way the angel trembled as he held him tightly, reassuring him of his presence, but also holding him in the moment...keeping him from slipping away..."Darling, __**please**__...you have to let go"..._

Crowley shook himself off as Aziraphale led him through the front gate, making a concerted effort to chase away the snatches of memory. He couldn't do this right now. Not when his angel had fought so hard for him.

"You know, I quite think your plants have missed you, dearest," Aziraphale noted as he looked around the garden out front. "They've maintained themselves quite well these four months. Not a frond out of place."

"We'll see about that," the demon said, glaring pointedly around at every single tree and bush he could properly lay eyes on. Despite his best efforts at his old death glare, he couldn't wholly help the small note of fondness he felt worm its way into the look. It was good to see something familiar...something from the past that had remained untouched.

Not quite sure what to do with himself, Crowley stood in the foyer while Aziraphale roused the cottage, still getting used to all the little ticks and nuances of his corporation. In a lot of ways, it had been almost...strange to slip back into human form after the time away from it. He felt so many things beneath the human flesh now. Things he was quite certain no human had ever found the words for, nor ever would. It was like being at once too much and not enough to fill the space beneath his human skin, as if one moment he might burst right out of that skin, and the very next he was shrinking within it, shriveling away to nothing inside a withering husk...like a snake that couldn't quite figure out if it was ready to shed the old skin.

The worst part of it all was that he couldn't even manage to figure out if it was all just in his head, as so many things were, or if it was legitimately some sort of effect of what the archangels had done to him. He just...didn't feel right within himself anymore.

_Do I even...still __**fit?**_

The time away with Aziraphale had helped, of course, and he appreciated his angel taking the time away from everything else to help him heal, but the time spent off in their true forms was a different plane of existence. It seemed that coming back to mortal time, back to mortal care, was going to be another healing process altogether. Hands wandering uncertainly to his midsection, Crowley looked around the space with a kind of fearful hope.

_Can it...ever be the way it was before?_

That was when he felt it.

The shift was small, so subtle as to almost be negligible, but he was attuned to the difference now. He felt the new lick of power beneath his own, separate from it, but still somehow a part of it, dependent on it. As the realization moved through him, his slim fingers involuntarily pressed that little bit more firmly against the flat plane of his belly.

_This...can't be...if...if I...what will I-_

He didn't say it out loud. Didn't even dare to think it. Because if he put a name to this feeling, it would make it real, and he didn't know if he was ready for that.

Was it possible? No doubt. He and Aziraphale had made love to each other often enough on their little unplanned holiday, but contraception was...something of a novel concept to two supernatural entities who had to make a concerted effort to even come together in that way. He honestly wasn't even certain how they'd managed it the first time. But whatever they'd done to manage it before...it seemed that they'd managed it again.

In only a moment, the realization took him from shock to sadness to hesitant joy and finally to fear.

_What am I gonna tell Aziraphale?_

"Oh, come and have a look at this, Crowley," the angel's voice came from the direction of the kitchen. He'd been engaging in that most mundane and domestic of human tasks – going through the post. While the demon had been most fond of the notion of junk mail as a concept and an invention, he'd never much liked being on the receiving end of it. So they didn't actually receive any post. What the mail consisted of was four rather thick letters from Anathema. "It's an invitation to Anathema's baby shower."

Part of him had wondered, albeit distantly, how he might react to mention of the expected Device-Pulsifer baby. That part had been worried of reopening wounds that weren't even properly scarred yet...of reacting with jealousy or even indifference. But he felt none of those things. If anything, he felt secretly happy that _someone's_ family was still intact. The witch hadn't been very far along when...well...the last time he'd seen her. Really, he hadn't seen any of the post-Apocalypse gang since...since the bookshop. Any of them except Adam and...that hadn't really been Adam. That had been the Antichrist. In fairness, though, he had specifically asked Aziraphale not to treat him like glass about any of this.

"Shower?" he repeated as he entered the kitchen. "Baby _shower?_ Why shower? What does that even mean?"

"Well, I believe the etymology of the phrase is something to the effect of "showering" the mother with gifts for the new baby. Though I do recall a somewhat odd offshoot of the idea from the nineteenth century that involved an umbrella-"

"Shhh," Crowley shushed him, shaking his head as he placed a finger over the angel's lips. "Already answered the question. Don't need more detail just now."

"So...do you _want_ to go?"

The demon shrugged. "Don't see any reason not to. World goes on turning and all. We saw to that."

There was something both precious and heartbreaking in the way his angel's face broke into a smile. As if their time away really _had_ been worth it...but also how he knew that face and smile he adored would be twisting with worry again before too long.

Maybe...just for tonight...he could imagine things were normal again.

He was good at imagining things, after all.

"Angel...do you think...maybe we could sleep tonight?"

"Of course. Whatever you'd like, dearest," Aziraphale said, still smiling as he set the letters aside. As he came around the table, he reached out to take Crowley's hand in his. Not so much because he thought the demon needed to be led, but because it was something of a habit of theirs now. They liked to be reassured that the other was nearby...that they were all right...

...that nothing had happened.

"Of course we shall have to think of something to give them. What will they need? Blankets? Bottles? Toys? Do children that young play with toys?" Aziraphale chattered on as they headed for their bedroom.

"All kids play with toys," Crowley answered softly, his free hand traveling back to his middle, out of the angel's sight. "Just needs to be age appropriate."

Aziraphale carried on as they got ready for bed, but Crowley was only half listening, distracted with trying to get a feel for what was happening inside of him. He hadn't imagined it. He knew that much. The new flicker really was there, just barely sparked within the vastness of his own existence. It was so small, so helpless, but that ember still burned with life. And life, he knew, was only too easy to extinguish.

What could he do to keep this life from slipping through his fingers?

"Angel," he interrupted as they climbed into bed together, "their other human friends can get them all that human stuff. I dunno what, but what we need to do is give them something only _we_ can give them."

"Something only _we_ can give them?" the angel mused as Crowley curled up around him, close as he could come to outright coiling around him outside of serpent form. "Now that's something to think on."

"Well, you think. I'll sleep."

"Yes, of course. Sleep well, darling," Aziraphale said, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. Crowley turned his face upward to catch the angel in a proper kiss, holding in the embrace for several moments, drawing it out.

He didn't much know how to explain it, but he could never seem to have enough of kissing Aziraphale. It wasn't as if they never had...back before Armageddon, even...but once that dam had broken and they'd no longer had to hide from each other what they truly wanted, well...the dam had all but _shattered_, really. Every time they kissed, he felt like he lost himself in it, no matter how long or how brief it was. The angel kissed with pleasure and fierce joy, like a man enjoying a favorite pastry, just on the verge of devouring it.

Crowley himself, though...the way Aziraphale had once described it to him was that he kissed like a man dying of thirst. Like he'd been parched in the desert and the angel's kiss was the drink of water that saved him. And while Crowley always blushed and hissed in annoyance at the poetic language, he couldn't exactly deny the truth of it. So he drank his fill of his angel's lips, reminding them both that they were still alive. It was a reminder he needed, because as he cuddled up against the angel, drifting off to sleep, he could only seem to think one thing.

_Aziraphale...I'm scared. I am __**so scared**__._

XxX

While Aziraphale went to reopen the bookshop the next morning, Crowley opted to try and have a bit of a drive around London, partly to see how things looked after their time away, but mostly to prove to himself that he didn't need to have his hand held the entire time.

He made a brief stop at his flat to check on things and was pleasantly surprised to find his plants in perfect condition.

"There now," he started as he looked around at all of them. "See? Is it really so hard to keep _this_ up? Why couldn't you do this before- _before_ they came?" he demanded, voice breaking in the middle of the sentence.

Without warning, he found himself on his knees in the middle of the room, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face, the salty tracks occasionally hissing and evaporating upon contact with his suddenly too-hot skin.

What the _bloody fuck?!_ He was supposed to be getting over this, wasn't he? Demons didn't cry. It wasn't a thing they were supposed to be _able_ to do, and indeed, he hadn't done all those months he'd been in his true form. Tears required more regret than a demon was supposed to be capable of. But he supposed he knew there was only so much true demonic nature he could maintain after such a long time among humans. He'd had his first taste of tears after Aziraphale's brief flirtation with death. And now again, it seemed. The pain he kept so carefully bound up inside of him overflowed its boundaries and, before long, he was curled in on himself on the floor, sobbing helplessly.

He shouldn't _do this!_ He should go to serpent form, back to true form. Something. _Anything!_ Anything not to have to cry like this. He was a sodding demon! He shouldn't be this weak. It was pathetic! Aziraphale wasn't falling apart. What business did he have just going to pieces like this?

Only...he couldn't exactly help it, could he? Nothing to do but let it happen. Miserable as it was. Miserable as _he_ was. So he just lay there for who could say how long, sobbing, and after a time he noticed that, rather than tremble at his presence, as the plants usually did, they seemed to be...leaning in closer to him, so much as they were capable of movement.

Bloody heaven, but he really had hit rock bottom. Getting sympathy from his own _plants_.

He couldn't put it off anymore. He had to tell Aziraphale what was happening.

Once he'd come to that determination, the tears finally subsided, allowing him at least to sit up. Interestingly enough, he...actually felt a little _better_ after crying. The tiny flame that flickered at the core of his being seemed to flare a little brighter, reaching out to him. Slender hands brushing sporadically over his midsection, he sent a tendril of comfort down to the little thing.

_Don't worry. It's all right. Everything's gonna be all right. Nobody's gonna hurt you. Nobody's going to __**dare!**_

Swallowing harshly, he smoothed away the more visible signs of his tears as he got to his feet. Somewhere in the middle of his episode, his sunglasses had fallen off.

He didn't pick them up.

Next would be the bookshop.

"Don't think you little bleeders can slack now I'm home again. I expect this kind of performance one hundred percent of the time now," he warned the plants with a nasty but fond look. Then, even if it was just for old times' sake, they all gave him a little tremble. He hissed at them before heading out.

XxX

Perhaps another reason he hadn't gone with Aziraphale that morning was that he'd wanted time to steel himself before seeing the old bookshop again. He honestly hadn't been certain how he might react to it, as he'd briefly had trouble with it following the Shadwell incident. As comforting a sanctuary as the old shop had become over the centuries, it was starting to accrue a lot of unpleasant memories.

If nothing else, Crowley supposed he could be grateful for the fact no one else was around when he first entered the aging building, because he was immediately struck by a slough of ugly flashbacks.

_...a spray of his own black blood covering one of the book stacks. Aziraphale wasn't going to be happy about that..._

_...Sandalphon and Iruel holding him down, flaying away the layers of his human self to reveal the demon within, and Uriel..._

_...the feel of his own throat scraped raw with his screams. He __**couldn't**_ _call Aziraphale. Not here. They would kill him. But-_

_**Angel, help! HELP US!**_

_...Gabriel's acid smile looming above it all. "If they can't be separated, just bring the whole package. We'll leave a note for Aziraphale"..._

Crowley gasped sharply, eyes blinking open as the memory released him. There was no sign of that bloody struggle now. The books were all in their usual places, pages and spines intact. The blood was gone, the scent of it wiped clean. The taste of ozone and heavenly fire was gone from the air. The pain he had felt then was only a distant phantom and the sound of angel wings only a faint memory of terror inside his own mind. There were no angels now.

Or, rather, there was _one_ angel – the one who hadn't been there before. Aziraphale had come in from the back, a look of sharp and painful worry on his face at the sight of the demon.

"Angel..." he exhaled on a broken breath, feeling just as helpless as he had in his flat...as he had four months ago.

"Darling," the angel began in a flurry as he rushed to him. Crowley didn't realize he'd been about to collapse until Aziraphale was catching him, holding him tightly as he clung to the solid reality of him. He didn't cry this time. He had no tears left after earlier, but he clung to the angel as if he'd never let go.

He managed to keep his feet, at least, not collapsing fully. He couldn't say how long he and Aziraphale stood like that, just holding tightly to each other, but all throughout he coiled himself up just as tightly within the other's firm, gentle touch...in his soft, tender words.

"It's all right. It's all right, dearest. I'm here now. I've got you," Aziraphale whispered to him. "They can't hurt you anymore. They'll never _dare_, my love."

"Aziraphale," he called softly, voice echoing with the same tremulous cry from the Apocalypse, not so much to try to explain. Just to say his name. "Aziraphale."

Once Crowley was a little more steady, Aziraphale shifted to simply holding his face between his hands, resting their foreheads together and allowing them each to just breathe the other in. After that, he pressed tender kisses to each of the demon's serpentine eyes, pulling back to look him in the eye.

"I knew I shouldn't have let you go off on your own today; I could just _tell_ something was wrong," the angel twittered in a guilty tone. "I should have been with you for this-"

"It's not that, Angel," he said quietly, even though it very much _was_. There was just more to it. Briefly, he wished he could sink into Aziraphale's touch and never have to think about anything ever again.

"Then what is it?" Aziraphale asked him, thumbs tracing circles along the hollows of his cheeks.

Even though he didn't really need them, Crowley took several steadying breaths before reaching for one of the angel's hands, drawing it slowly down his own body until he brought it to rest against his belly, holding it firmly in place as he looked into his eyes. He watched as those grey eyes first widened in realization, then wobbled briefly, looking into his with pale hope.

"Are- are you certain?"

Crowley nodded slowly, holding that hand a little more firmly against him. "It's happened again. I...I'm pregnant," he near-whispered, finally saying the words out loud, making them real again. Maybe he was afraid someone might overhear him. Whatever it might've been, he was sorely tempted to collapse back into the angel's arms when he pressed his fingers a little more intently against his middle.

"How do you know?"

"I can feel it. It- _feels_...like it did before," he explained in a halting voice. "Like a little spark...something that's me, but also..._not_ me. I dunno. It's hard to explain. You just- you have to _look_."

Almost counterintuitive to what he'd said, Aziraphale closed his eyes, but Crowley knew he understood what it was he'd actually meant. He was looking beyond the physical, to the place where his true form existed, to see what had changed in him. And another something in him fell a little bit more in love when he saw that face break into a tender smile. When Aziraphale opened his eyes again, they shone briefly with tears.

"Oh, darling...it's- they're beautiful. You're both _so beautiful_," he exalted before pulling Crowley into a kiss. But this kiss was a little too brief for the demon's liking. It wasn't long before the angel was pulling back from him, the joy in his expression melting into fear and worry. "Will- will _you_ be all right? Are you certain you're _ready_ for this? So soon after-"

"Doesn't matter whether I'm _ready_ or not," Crowley said with a small, bitter laugh. "It's happening. Can't _not_ happen," he said, pulling away from the angel and walking further into the bookshop. Aziraphale stopped him with a hand at his elbow. Not a grip he couldn't easily break if he felt the need to, but he never would. If anyone, he _knew_ Aziraphale wasn't going to hurt him.

"Then...I swear I will do whatever it takes to keep you both safe. Neither angel nor demon will lay even a single _feather_ on you. If they do, they will find themselves lacking the wing," the principality vowed fiercely. Then his hand shifted down Crowley's arm to grip his hand once more. He drew that hand up to his lips and pressed a worshipful kiss to the demon's palm.

Crowley loved the feel of the devoted kiss, but was also unnerved by the naked brutality he heard in his angel's words, the agony he observed in the bend of his shoulders. Only for the third time, he was struck by just how deeply Aziraphale had been affected by losing him, by feeling as though he'd failed him. He had seen this fire in the angel only once before, and he didn't _want_ to see it again.

Not even for the sake of their family did he want to watch Aziraphale lose himself.

"Angel-" he started in, but was interrupted by the sudden jingling of the shop's bell. He was ready to turn and stop time on whatever unfortunate human had interrupted them when he actually _saw_ who it was that entered the bookshop.

"Knock, knock?" Anathema asked hopefully as she waddled through the front door, her dress already beginning to strain against the bulge of her seven months' pregnant belly. She was followed soon after by Adam. Both the witch and the Antichrist looked uncharacteristically anxious. Crowley quickly miracled a new pair of sunglasses into place.

"Adam! Anathema!" Aziraphale greeted as he turned to them, his smile only partly put on. "Wonderful to see you both again, but- whatever are you doing here?"

"Adam said you were back. He asked me to bring him down. Couldn't say no," she said, offering the boy a fond sideways smile. "Besides, I wanted to see you, too. We didn't know when or- or even _if_ you'd be back. I mean I- none of us would've _blamed_ you if you'd wanted to stay away...with everything Adam's told us-"

"I knew," Adam insisted, more or less barging his way into the shop. "I _knew_ you were coming home."

The boy didn't waste words after that. He made a beeline for Crowley and, to almost no one's surprise, threw his arms around him in a tight hug. The demon returned the hug, albeit it a bit gentler. Before, he knew, he would've found this awkward or uncomfortable, but now he just let the boy hug him. Adam and Aziraphale had faced down the rage of Heaven for his sake, after all.

"Good to see you, too, little imp. But you're gonna have to be gentle with me," he told the boy. Adam slowly loosened his grip as he looked up at the demon who'd delivered him to his parents.

"You're gonna have another kid," he said, excitement quickly firing up in his large eyes as he smiled up at Crowley. It wasn't a question.

A similar smile slowly started to move across Anathema's face as she looked between the angel and the demon. "Really? You're pregnant again?"

"Yeah," Crowley answered with a shrug as Adam released him, trying to be casual about the whole business. It was one thing to lower his defenses around Aziraphale, but another entirely around anyone else.

The young witch considered it a moment before nodding. "I guess four months is about right for it. Do we need to start talking...battle plans?" she asked, again looking between the two of them.

"Fairly soon, yes," Aziraphale answered. "For now, simple space-time manipulation will serve, but...well...it will not serve forever."

"And you two are coming to the shower?" she asked the angel. "I wasn't sure if you were receiving my letters at all, but I thought I should send you the invitation anyway."

"Surely, surely, dear girl. But your baby shower ought to be about _you_. We aren't turning it into some sort of war council."

"We are if _I_ say we are," Anathema said, focus turning more to Crowley as she spoke. "This isn't just _your_ fight. If these guys want to use your kid to start the next Apocalypse or whatever, then it's everybody's fight. I want to build a safer world for my daughter. I can't- _begin_ to imagine what it's like to lose a child. If there's _anything_ I can do, I want to help you pay those _assholes_ back for everything they did to you."

The demon kept eye contact with the witch as she spoke, which he was a little impressed with since she couldn't properly _see_ his eyes. _She_ understood. If any of them did, Anathema understood. She understood in a way even _Aziraphale_ couldn't. Even so...

"I do, too," Adam spoke up. "I know I wasn't much help before. I'm still figuring out how the powers work now. But I wanna get them back, too."

Aziraphale sighed as he shook his head. "Adam, there's no call to be down on yourself. You were _very_ helpful up there. Likely you're the only reason Crowley and I even walked away from it. It's just- Gabriel and Beelzebub had not been prepared to consider you as a factor before. They are prepared now. They will be ready for you. I'm not certain even the pair of _you_ can truly comprehend what it is we're up against."

"Hey, we averted the Apocalypse, didn't we?" Anathema pointed out.

"Whatever comes after that should be easy," the young Antichrist continued on.

"You'd think," Crowley started in heavily, finally joining the conversation. "But what we were up against before was Heaven and Hell on script. There's no script this time. No nice and accurate book of prophecies. No 'it is written's. No Great Plan. No high and holy play book where A + B = C. It's just angels and demons doing whatever the bloody heaven they want. And that, to my mind, is something much more dangerous than bureaucracy."

"Okay," Anathema began again after a long moment of staring him in the eye. "What are we supposed to do then? Just lie down and die? The two of you can't be expected to handle everything, not with all you've been through. It's just not fair. I know you don't think we can help, but we happen to live on this planet, too. If we can't protect it, there's not much point to us having it, is there," she declared. On most other women, the defiant stance of feet planted apart and hands on hips would've been made decidedly less imposing by a heavily pregnant belly, but not Anathema Device-Pulsifer. If anything, she looked even more a spitfire than normal.

Glancing sideways at Crowley, Aziraphale tilted his head and raised both eyebrows.

_How can we possibly involve them in all this? It's __**far**_ _too dangerous._

Crowley shrugged, jutting his hip out a little further before crossing his arms over his chest.

_You know they'll involve themselves anyway. Isn't it better they be involved __**with**_ _us than with__**out**_ _us?_

The angel winced, dipping his head a little lower, jaw jutting out slightly in an incredulous look.

_You want to pit __**our friends**_ _up against Beelzebub and Gabriel? After what he __**did**_ _to you?_

Crowley shuddered, glancing away from Aziraphale, the gesture carrying no words. Only pain. While he didn't _see_ the angel's response, he could _feel_ him freeze in the space beside him. Then Aziraphale was reaching out for him, taking his hand in his. Crowley looked back to see his face stricken with guilt.

_I'm so sorry, my darling. I didn't mean to-_

Crowley shook his head, returning the grip as he raised the angel's hand to his lips to brush a kiss along his knuckles. When he looked down at him over the rims of his sunglasses, the only thing he conveyed was love. But then he let his expression shift into his typical devilish smirk as he nodded toward Adam and Anathema.

_Because if I remember what you told me correctly, this pair of humans was essential to helping you find me._

Aziraphale's expression shifted into an exasperated but fond smile.

_It seems you __**can **__talk me into anything._

"Would you two cut that out for a second?" Anathema snapped at them.

"Hmm?" Crowley asked, raising an eyebrow at the witch.

"That thing where you have a whole conversation just _looking_ at each other. Some of us can't follow."

Aziraphale chuckled as he pulled his hand away from Crowley's. "Oh, you'll develop the ability with time, dear girl. For now, though, it seems I am overruled."

"Yeah!" Adam cheered.

"We've nothing particular to discuss today, however, so why don't we get some tea going. I'd offer some brandy but, well, at this late stage..." he said, glancing down at Anathema's baby bump. "Tea it is."

"Thank you, Aziraphale," the witch said as she and Adam followed him into the back. "I knew you'd see things our way."

"And perhaps I can scrounge up a tin of biscuits or two."

"That's _loads_ better than tea. We had these great biscuits at my birthday. You should've been there."

"We were both quite sorry to miss it."

"No mind. Not supposed to make a big deal about that sort of thing anymore, am I. I'm _officially_ a teenager now-" Adam went on.

Crowley hung back for a moment, losing the thread of the conversation. Even though he'd advocated for the involvement of the others, it didn't mean he was any less worried. This was a dangerous business, and human lives were already so short. Didn't they deserve to have what they were allotted without having to concern themselves with the affairs of angels and demons?

Ah, well. Crowley was many things, but he was never one to deny a person their choice, and these two had made one. It almost nauseated him a bit to admit it, but- the idea that someone not Aziraphale was willing to fight so hard for him...it warmed him in some small way. Lips quirking in an awkward smile, he let his hand drift to his middle.

_You're gonna have a wonderful family, little angel._

"Your hair's longer," Anathema commented when he joined them in the back.

"Huh?" the demon mumbled eloquently, reaching up to tangle his fingers in what was, indeed, fairly long hair. A little past shoulder-length. In fairness, he hadn't really taken the time to examine his appearance since taking up his corporation again, but he really ought to have noticed the feel of all that hair against his neck.

But then...maybe he just didn't want to know what he looked like right now.

"Well. What d'you know."

"I guess it didn't really _seem_ like you were gone all that long...even if it _has_ been over half a year. That's a lot of hair growth for just seven months," she noted as they watched Adam talk Aziraphale's ear off while he readied the tea.

"Mneh, it's- human- demon, true form- body...timey stuff. 's complicated," he mumbled absently.

"I like it," she said, not pressing further into the subject. "It looks good on you."

"Honey, I can make _anything_ look good," he said as he sat down beside her. "Except maybe polka dots. No idea what's up there."

"Not one of yours?" Aziraphale called out over Adam's chatter.

"Excuse you," he fired back at the angel. "I'm evil, not a heathen."

"Any idea how far along you are?" Anathema asked him once the minor argument had settled down.

Crowley shook his head. "None at all. In human terms...can't be anywhere outside of a month. We'll just- see how this one goes. Could even be completely different from the first. Dunno."

His first had only vaguely followed a human pattern anyway. The only thing he could be certain of with this new one was that it was going to be that much more stressful than the first – knowing just how horrifically wrong it could go.

But then he looked up to see Aziraphale, smiling as he went about serving tea and biscuits to the witch and the Antichrist. He had been reminded of just how much power was concealed beneath that soft, unassuming human frame only too recently, but for every ounce of power, there was just as much love. That power had been fueled by the angel's love for him.

_"This is proof of __**his**_ _love for __**you**__. Cruel proof, isn't it, Crawly."_

Crowley shook off the memory of Michael's voice with a pained shudder. He didn't need to be thinking of it now. When he drew himself back to the present, it was to find Aziraphale looking at him with a twinge of worry in his smile.

He nodded to let the angel know he was fine – fine as he _could_ be, anyway. There was no knowing what was ahead of them. Not really. But had there ever been?

_We'll get there. We'll get through it,_ he thought, allowing his hand to subtly rest against his middle again. _And even if we don't...they can't take this away from us. They can never. Even if it's brief...at least we had this._

XxX

**Then**

Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley had ever been the sort for marking anniversaries of any kind. There was just a certain point where time didn't matter all that much. But when Madam Tracy had sent them an invitation to a little get together in 'commemoration of the averting of the end times', well...how could they refuse her?

It was a simple little affair, a cookout between the eerily picturesque fields of Lower Tadfield and Hogback Wood. It was an evening in which it was revealed that none of the ragtag band was much of a hand at grilling things, but that Tracy herself made divine cream puffs. That alone, in Aziraphale's opinion, made the whole outing worth it. Though it was surely adorable to watch the Them engage in some sort of marshmallow contest, seeing who could fit the most marshmallows on their roasting sticks. This was followed in short order by a competition to see which child could fit the most in their mouth which, to nearly everyone's surprise, was won by Wensleydale. Although Crowley did have to step in with a little miracle when the poor boy's face began to turn blue.

As with most groups of children, Wensleydale's very brief brush with death earned him a bit of celebrity status amongst his friends. Gathered around the fire with a fresh bag of marshmallows, their morbid topic of conversation was soon branching out from death by asphyxiation and into other avenues of dying, including, but not limited to, strangulation, hanging, drowning, smothering, suffocating in the vacuum of space, and, soon enough, beheading, which quickly evolved into the twelve-year-old version of a symposium on the Six Wives of Henry the VIII.

"Oh, my," Aziraphale commented from a safe distance, shuddering. "The _things_ children will discuss." After all, there had been no love lost between Crowley and that particular monarch.

The serpent seemed just as content not to bring it up, though, keeping the conversation in the present moment instead.

"What's _really_ nice about all this is that we get to give them back to their parents hopped up on marshmallows at the end of the night," Crowley said, smiling in an oddly contented way as he slouched further back in his folding chair. Miraculously, the thing managed to stay uncollapsed despite the intricate tangle of limbs inhabiting it. The only bit of him the angel could properly distinguish anymore was the hand that reached out to rest on his knee. "Introduce a little anarchy."

"Crowley, you really are a demon," Anathema said with a small laugh, head resting easily against Newt's shoulder as their fingers intertwined in an awkwardly cute sort of way.

A second arm emerged from the sinuous collective of limbs that was Aziraphale's lover as the demon threw his head back to gaze up at the twilit sky. Beginning with an exaggerated hiss, he concluded with, "What's the point in being Fallen if you can't enjoy your sin a little?" Crowley had been idly rubbing circles along his knee with his thumb, but the word 'sin' was punctuated with a somewhat more intent sort of rub. Aziraphale shivered pleasantly, despite the warmth of the May evening.

"Someone's clearly never had to deal with a sugar high little one," the witch said.

"Oh, I've dealt with _loads_ of sugar high miniature humans in the time I've been on this planet, but I _always_ get to give them back to their parents when I'm _done_ dealing with them."

"So you wouldn't want children of your own then?" Madam Tracy asked them. She and Shadwell were sitting together, but the former sergeant was plainly nervous about actually reaching out to take her hand.

"You know, I never gave the matter much thought. Head office raised such an almighty _fuss_ over the Nephilim, it hardly seemed worth it to challenge them on the subject," Aziraphale answered, hoping that might be the end of the subject. _He_ hadn't thought much on it, but _Crowley_...

"Well, you've now defied them pretty thoroughly on every _other_ subject," Anathema pointed out. "Why not this one, too?"

"Can an angel and a demon even reproduce? How does that work?" Newt was the one to ask.

"Probably not. Not like anyone's ever tried," Crowley responded and, to the others, the angel was quite certain he sounded nonchalant. But he knew his demon too well. He could hear the undercurrent of old longing in his voice.

Crowley had always loved children, from Cain himself right down to this unruly gang of four just a little ways off. Oh, he always complained of them to anyone who would listen, but he would also be the first to sneak some kids a handful of sweets, or nick an apple for a hungry child. He listened when they spoke, which was more than most adults could say, and he protected them. Above all else, he protected them. Aziraphale sometimes thought that the demon's greatest stake in preventing the Apocalypse had been because he wanted to serve as some kind of voice for all of the children who had none in how ridiculous the whole thing was. The angel had always been of the opinion that Crowley would be a _wonderful_ parent. It just wasn't something that had ever been in the cards.

"It's...complicated," Aziraphale tried to explain when Crowley left it hanging. "We are the same _type_ of being, after all, and angels _can_ reproduce; the mere existence of the Nephilim rather attests to that. It's just...well...it's _different_ between angels. We have our own version of- making love, I suppose is the most comparable term. But two angels coming together...it doesn't typically result in the creation of a new angel. There have been only a handful of those since the creation of the Earth and I don't think a one of their progenitors could tell you _exactly_ how it came about. Perhaps it's simply been the will of the Almighty-"

"Fornication Under Consent of the Queen, as it were," Crowley put in snidely. While they'd been speaking, his hand had moved steadily up Aziraphale's thigh, leaving little room for doubt in the angel's mind as to where his thoughts were truly bending tonight. But he did at least manage to be a _little_ subtle, that hand moving up to encircle Aziraphale's waist, rather than into more dangerous territory. Although Aziraphale was only too aware that Crowley was capable of being _dangerous_ with any part of the body he pleased. "But what about you, Book Girl? Miss Anathema Device? Since you're the only one here who can actually have kids. When's the ole' baby-making factory gonna be open for business?"

Newt actually went visibly pale at his words and Anathema herself gave an awkward laugh of understanding, letting him know she got that his crude way of phrasing the question was about the same level of propriety that the conversation had started off with. "Let's get through the wedding before we start talking about that."

Ah, yes. The impending Device-Pulsifer nuptials, coming up in a little over a month now. Aziraphale had proudly tacked their invitation up over his desk when it had arrived. It wasn't the first time either of them had been invited to a wedding, but it was the first time they'd been invited to a wedding _together_...as a couple. It was probably ridiculous, but the angel found himself savoring little things like that. Having breakfast together and not just catching lunch, being able to take the demon's hand in public without fear of being seen, helping him set up new plants in the bookshop, going shopping together just to be able to go _together_, to be able to tell anyone who asked that they _were_ together. And even though he was a little more clandestine about it, Aziraphale would sometimes catch Crowley looking at that invitation, just to look at their names printed side by side...together.

No. It had never been about the large things. It was the small ones – the little moments that made him fall even more in love with the demon than even _he_ had thought possible. The year following the Almost-pocalypse had been nothing short of bliss for the old but still young couple.

Anathema and Tracy had almost immediately begun to talk shop about the wedding when the subject had come up. Newt still looked like he might pass out and Tracy had managed to take Shadwell's hand in the meantime, leaving the retired witchfinder in a state of near-shock. Really, it was precious to watch.

The children, in the meantime, had abandoned their conversation about the merits of sword vs. axe in beheading in favor of going off to chase fireflies. A rare enough sight in the UK, but Tadfield was full of such sights, after all.

Crowley, throughout all of this, had gradually latched more and more onto him, to the point there was a single black-clad arm draped around him while the fingers of the other hand twined together with his. Even an ankle wrapped seamlessly about his while the demon rested his head on his shoulder.

"Angel...let's get out of here," he said softly, out of the hearing of the others.

"And go where?" he asked in the same tone, not looking over at his partner, but still displaying the same level of understated interest.

"Somewhere. Anywhere. Doesn't matter. Let's go be alone together," Crowley returned, shifting his head a little to press a kiss to Aziraphale's shoulder.

"I think we might just pop off for a walk," Aziraphale announced to the rest of the group quite abruptly as he and the serpent rose from their chairs as one, Crowley somehow managing to emerge from his nest of limbs as a coherent human-shaped being.

"Oh. Do you think you'll be back before the night's over?" Anathema asked them.

"Mm-not likely," Crowley answered honestly.

"Did you two need a place for the night?" Newt asked. "I mean- there's not much space at Jasmine with Shadwell and Madam, but we could probably figure something out."

"No need to worry on us, dear boy. We'll be quite all right on our own. Do wish the children good night for us," Aziraphale said as they moved around the circle, giving out hugs, kisses, or handshakes as was required for each individual. "See you all in a few weeks."

Then they were off, walking hand in hand into the gathering darkness that was Hogback Wood, though it wasn't all that long before the swaths of darkness were cut away by the light from the field of stars appearing overhead.

"A bit different from our usual haunts," Aziraphale couldn't quite help commenting after several long moments of easy silence.

"A bit," the demon returned with a small laugh, fingers twining a little more intently with the angel's.

"I take it you had more than simple Effort in mind?" he asked the serpent with a raised eyebrow, even though Crowley wasn't really looking at him.

"Maybe," he replied with an exaggerated shrug, pulling Aziraphale's hand up to his lips and brushing a featherlight kiss along his knuckles.

They had both made the Effort by this point, if only to taste more of the fruit of the world they had helped save...to savor the closeness that had so long been denied them. But as Aziraphale had explained to Newt before, there were other ways they might come together...other ways they could make love. As an angel and a demon were truly capable of becoming one...that was a delight they had yet to partake in. They had skated the surface often enough, but never quite broken the ice...taken the plunge...so Aziraphale had to wonder...

"Why now?" he asked, shifting his hand just a little to cup the demon's face in his palm. "What's different tonight?"

"I dunno," Crowley said, once again with such naked honesty as he leaned into the angel's touch. "Just- _feels_ right...I guess? And before you ask, _no_. It's nothing to do with what the others were talking about," he finished with an annoyed huff, almost burrowing into the hand that caressed his face.

Aziraphale laughed quietly before drawing the demon into a kiss, relishing in the taste of his lips like the delicacy they were. It didn't seem to matter how many times he kissed Crowley. He never tired of it. There was something new to taste every time. Something savory and eager, something bitter and longing, something smoky and enticing, but above all, something sweet...something sweet and tender, hopelessly, hopelessly in love.

Crowley seemed to drink in the kiss like water, like a creature dying of thirst. Again, it didn't seem to matter how many times they kissed. Crowley always seemed to be just as amazed to be kissing him as he had been that very first night...like he was questioning if maybe he'd been forgiven his trespasses and been admitted back into Heaven. Not that the Heaven of today was likely anywhere _near_ the place of bliss he kept in his memories, but the analogy remained valid, all the same...

Smiling briefly into the kiss before pulling out of it, Aziraphale took a moment to take in Crowley's expression – an aching, longing sort of look, like he wanted to reach after the angel for another taste. He settled instead for turning his face away from Aziraphale's, pressing his lips to the palm that had still been cradling his cheek. For a moment, he held that hand to his lips with both of his own, as if it were a piece of fruit he was biting into. A tiny shudder escaped the angel when the demon flicked his tongue out to lap at the delicate skin.

"Have...have you ever-"

Crowley shook his head as he looked back up at him. "Not with an angel. _Definitely_ not with another demon. Not even really sure I know _how_..."

"I tried once...a _very_ long time ago," he told the demon as they continued to walk through the moonlight. "I couldn't manage to open myself to her enough."

"So what?" Crowley pressed when they came to the edge of a small lake. "You're saying we just have to...be open to each other?"

"Something of that nature, yes," Aziraphale said, squeezing the serpent's hand a little tighter as he looked at him again. Then, with his free hand, he started to reach for Crowley's sunglasses. "May I?"

Crowley started at the question, but ultimately nodded, gripping Aziraphale's hand all the tighter himself as the angel slid the dark glasses from his face. Once they were off, he kept his eyes closed for a moment.

"Crowley...dearest...I can stop anytime you want," he reassured him, but the demon shook his head, pulling in a deep breath before blinking his serpent's eyes open, golden and luminous in the starlight. Those eyes that were so uniquely Crowley – Aziraphale had always thought them lovely, but the face that contained them was still hesitant...still afraid. What he wouldn't give to reassure him.

"Behold, you are beautiful, my love," Aziraphale whispered breathlessly as those eyes gazed into his. The demon gave a small hiss at the words, trying to sound annoyed, but not quite able to manage it. "As a lily among brambles, so is my love among all others."

The demon blushed furiously, the coloring of his pale skin quite obvious beneath the light of the stars. "Going biblical on me, angel?"

"Well, you can't really beat the original love song," he said, smiling warmly before pressing kisses to each of the serpent's eyes. "You are _remarkably_ beautiful, my dear," he whispered against those eyes. Then he took a few steps away, out onto the dark surface of the lake, the already still water becoming miraculously still beneath his feet. Crowley kept a hold of his hand for as long as he could, but ultimately had to let go when the angel stepped too far out of his reach.

"Aziraphale, you...you _know_ I can't-"

"As Charles once said, 'Bear but a touch of my hand and you shall be upheld in more than this'," he said, and he held his hand out to the demon, moving just close enough so that he could reach out to take it. Crowley hesitated only a moment longer before reaching out to clasp Aziraphale's hand in his. Then the angel pulled him toward him and they weren't standing _on_ the water, but hovering just a little ways above it. His laugh as they moved further away from the shore was only a little hysterical.

"Please, please, _please_ don't talk to me about faith right now, angel," he insisted, the nervous laugh taking on an almost bitter quality.

"Hadn't thought to, dearest," he said with an easy smile as he spun them out over the still surface, not quite dancing, but the starlight upon the face of the water had an aching, almost haunting melody all its own. "Look."

Guiding the demon's gaze upward with a little nod, he was rewarded with a look of unbridled wonder spreading across Crowley's face as he looked up at the vast sea of stars above them. The multitude of color was reflected in those spellbound gold eyes.

"Can't see this in London," he said, a twinge of sadness sounding in his voice, though his expression still shone with reverence, with longing. "Maybe that's why I invented light pollution..."

"Well...perhaps we ought to spend more time out in the country then," Aziraphale suggested, hand reaching up to caress the demon's face once more. "After all, I see no reason why you ought to be deprived of your stars, beloved."

"Heh, of course _you_ wouldn't," Crowley said with another small huff, though there was something almost...grateful in his expression as he looked back at the angel. He looked as if there was more he wanted to say, but couldn't quite bring himself to it, so he smiled faintly instead.

"Will you let me see them, my darling?" Aziraphale asked, his voice almost loud in the gentle silence of the night as he let his hand fall to Crowley's shoulder, fingers tracing easily down the length of his arm. "I want to see you."

"Anything you want, angel," Crowley returned, eyes briefly slipping closed as another small smile turned up the corners of his mouth. With a shudder and a little sigh, he allowed his wings to spread out behind him, the lovely darkness of them unfurling upon the air and upon the delicate spheres of the ethereal plane.

Aziraphale felt something inside of him _spark_ at the sight. When he reached out a hand to caress the glittering black expanse, he could both see and feel the play of lightning and fire about his own fingertips.

Crowley gasped softly at the contact, wings flaring wider as the loose flickers of lightning traced the fine edges of his feathers. Aziraphale allowed that spark the demon had called awake in him to travel throughout his partner's form, both human and demonic. As Crowley writhed in pleasure beneath the flow of power, Aziraphale leaned in to press a kiss to his neck.

"You are altogether _beautiful_, my love," he whispered against the serpent's skin, continuing what he'd left unfinished before while his grace caressed the demon in his arms. "You have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes. This is my beloved...and this is my friend."

"Aziraphale," he cried out helplessly, the single word of the angel's name rising on a swell of exquisite desire. Aziraphale could taste divine fire in his mouth and he wanted nothing more than to _pour_ that essence into his lover, to share with him the molten heart of his power, of him_self_. And Crowley was only too eager to accept what he offered when they melted into a fresh kiss.

The angel was hard-pressed not to share _too_ much of that power too quickly when he felt the demon's serpent-like tongue flick out to lick at his lips, then at his own tongue. With the lightning he allowed to penetrate to the heart of his partner came the distant tremor of thunder. Crowley clung to him tightly, _so_ tightly, but when he cried out into Aziraphale's mouth, the sound was much too sharp, too sudden, to be a sound of pleasure.

"Darling! I'm sorry," he started off in panic, attempting to pull back. "Did I hurt you?"

"No-" Crowley started to lie, still clinging to him, trying to keep them pressed together. "Well...yeah...a bit. But I liked it. It was a good kind of hurt. Don't stop," he pleaded softly, briefly nuzzling his face in the crook of Aziraphale's neck. "I want- to feel..._Show me_."

Understanding what was wanted, the angel allowed a few more of his inhibitions to shake loose, the burn and bloom of his own pale wings unfurling in both planes sending a fresh ripple of pure _ecstasy_ through him.

He could see Crowley twice now, could see the beautiful, _perfect_ human figure in his arms, yellow eyes glowing dimly as tears slipped from them, painting pale, delicate cheeks.

And he could see the truth of him.

He could see the figure that spread beyond the confining limits of mortal flesh to stand silhouetted against the infinite backdrop of eternity, both glorious and terrifying. He could see the vestiges of grace that still clung like tatters of torn flesh to the shadowy midnight of the demon's wings. But rather than be repulsed by the sight of such violent damnation, Aziraphale found it only made the fallen angel more beautiful in his sight. The harsh, strong figure of the demon, hollowed out and carved from the darkest matter, was threaded through with breathing darkness and punishing flame – the haunted, hunting spectre of any human's worst nightmare sculpted into being.

It was a sight that was meant to repel him, the angel knew, meant to force his gaze away in disgust and pity. But Aziraphale had never been able to look away. For in that nightmare vision that was the demon Crowley, he had always seen the beauty that gave form to that fire, the sharp, undiminished will that breathed within that darkness. For the longest time, he had wondered if his seeing these things simply meant there was something wrong with _him_. So long..._so long_ it had taken him to understand the truths that should have been apparent to him from the very first.

He saw the demon's eyes glow a little brighter as Crowley watched him watching him. Above the human plane, his tears were cold fire, tinged with the remnants of stardust that had once flowed so freely through his being. They were suspended between endless fields of stars in both planes of existence, but in the angel's view, not a one of those stars shone more beautifully than Crowley's eyes. Leaning in to kiss them once more, he exhaled his beloved's name on a tremulous breath. As humans, they held tightly to each other, floating between the sea of stars overhead and the same sea reflected in the waters beneath them, but as angel and demon, they lay down together on a bed of starlight, wings interlacing as both light and matter as pure etheric essence flowed between them.

It was no longer just him sharing power with the demon. Crowley was open to him now, and he to him...open and inviting. As divinity poured forth from his own being, infernal fire rushed into him, through the layers of him, to his very heart, and no part of him was left untouched. He was on fire, spilling out radiance like a newborn star, his very essence _boiling_ with sensation.

_"Aziraphale..."_ his lover's cry came to him on every possible wavelength – as sound, as energy, as light, as pure _thought._ Nothing was withheld from him and he held nothing back, giving forth the full wonder of his divine light while taking in the full force of Crowley's own power – the dark chaos that both consumed and gave birth to his own light.

_"Crowley..." _he returned, his cry more than just a word.

_Your name to me is love._

He knew that, on some level, they had both feared hurting each other...to even contemplate a coupling like this, but they now both saw how ridiculous that was. They could never harm each other; not when the light and the darkness they both shared were so freely given.

_Angel,_ the demon's voice came to him, barely coherent, wrecked with pleasure. The touch of that thought, of that _feeling_ against his own was thrilling. _Unh...__**angel!**_

_Oh, Love. My love,_ he gave the feeling of bliss back a thousandfold, ravished with chaos and ecstasy. He was close now. _So close..._

Somewhere, on one of the many spheres they now inhabited together, he could feel the demon's fingers intertwined tightly with his own, feel the pounding rhythm of his blood, his fire, his _power_. They were so intent on each other, he wasn't certain even the Almighty herself could've separated them.

_"I love you."_

And just like that, they were complete. At the absolute height of their ecstasy, their combined pleasure spilled over, forming them as one perfect soul. It was a moment, only a moment, hardly a flicker against the canvas of _always_, but in that moment of perfect union, every barrier that separated them had been obliterated, and everything either Aziraphale or Crowley had understood as separate beings seemed to unwind around that single soul...that single understanding...

_That is the answer._

XxX

When Aziraphale finally resolved back into his own being, it was to find himself lying on the shores of a lake, Crowley lying beside him. It was a great deal later in the night than it had been when he and the serpent had initially gone off together, as evidenced by the fading stars and the grey light of the coming dawn. Both their corporations and their clothing were distinctly more disheveled than he last remembered them being, but he had a lovely, only somewhat vague memory of just why that was. He couldn't entirely help the warm smile that spread across his face as he leaned over to kiss the slumbering demon's eyes.

He couldn't say how long it was they lay there like that before Crowley started to blink himself awake, but the demon's confusion was no more than a handful of those blinks. Aziraphale had the pleasure of seeing uninhibited _joy_ in those golden eyes as his partner leaned in to kiss him good morning.

"Hwoo," the serpent exhaled when he finally pulled back. "That was...heaven, angel, don't suppose you've got a cigarette on hand. I don't think I've been so thoroughly _shagged_ in...ever," he finished with a small laugh.

"Well, it was a bit more than mere shagging," the angel sniffed as he sat up, though he was still grinning.

"Bit more, yeah," Crowley agreed, reaching out to take Aziraphale's hand before miracling his discarded sunglasses back into place. "Reeaally great way to say bollocks to the Apocalypse. Can't exactly get you breakfast in bed here, though, so what say we track down my darling girl and then find you some crepes."

"I rather like the sound of that," he said, still grinning like a fool as he drew his partner into yet another kiss. Neither of them could have known it at the time, but the sheer amount of sexual energy their coupling had unleashed would have a very profound effect on the future population of Tadfield and the surrounding villages.

It would have just as profound an effect on them personally, as well, but in that moment, even the notion of such a thing was far and away. On this morning, a year and a day after the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, the angel and the demon were together, and they were happy.

XxX

(A/N) So...shall we continue?


	2. Perhaps I Had a Miserable Youth

(A/N) Hello, all! So sorry this update took so long. I was so overwhelmed with the warm response this little story got. So many anonymous messages I can only properly respond to here. I'm so happy my little tale's been inspiring. There's no need to worry about whether I'll continue it, though. The updating's just going to be slow at first, since I have three or so other active projects going at the moment. So early on here, this one's going to be a monthly sort of update schedule, but I'll pick up the pace as I knock out my other projects. Hope you all enjoy the new chapter!

**I Knew You'd Be Our Angel**

_Chapter 2: Perhaps I Had a Miserable Youth_

**Now**

The baby shower was a typical, human sort of affair. Or at least Aziraphale assumed it was, never having attended one before. It seemed quite human. With Deirdre Young leading Anathema and several other Tadfield women in weight guessing and name games. Under normal circumstances, he imagined he would have found the proceedings quite precious – a group of women preparing to welcome a new life into the world, sharing stories and offering advice – but...well..the circumstances were not normal.

The circumstances hadn't been normal for quite some time now.

At first, the angel had been worried more for Crowley and how he might take the whole situation, that it maybe hadn't been a good idea for him to attend at all. But the demon kept insisting he didn't want them to treat him any differently than they had before it had happened. So Aziraphale always tried to abide by that wish, behaving as though things were normal, even though they weren't.

But his partner didn't seem to be having any averse reactions to the goings on. In fact, if his sense of the demon's feelings was correct, they were similar to his own – a sort of...somewhat happy melancholy. As in...it was nice to see all this happening for Anathema, it was wonderful to think of the little life beginning inside of her but, at the same time...he would find himself feeling almost...short of breath...whenever he would catch sight of a tiny sock or a miniature spoon.

_She would be- four and half months old now._

Whenever thoughts like that would cross his mind, his hand would find its way to Crowley's, and he didn't ask questions whenever the demon's hand would make its way to his. It wasn't unbearable, crushing grief, as it had been in the beginning. Just- a longing...a wondering... The fact that the demon was pregnant again did nothing to alleviate that wondering. Honestly, he wasn't certain anything ever would. This new pregnancy...didn't feel real just yet. Who could say when it would?

Crowley had just released his hand after the revealing of a particularly adorable elephant onesie when one of the town ladies they didn't know suddenly spoke up.

"Actually, my dear, I think I know what I'd like to add to the name pot now. What do you think of Stella? Simple. Classic. Not too old-fashioned. Seems to check all your boxes."

Aziraphale was almost surprised when he heard no response from Anathema, but it didn't take him long to figure out why that was.

Crowley had full-on stopped time.

Anathema and the little circle of ladies had completely frozen up, Anathema with her mouth opening for whatever answer she'd been about to give. Newt was caught coming in from the kitchen with a fresh tray of tea. The Them were stopped mid-regale by Pepper of the one time she'd seen a baby being born.

And Crowley himself? Well, he'd somehow come to be in the far corner of the room, his body trembling as his eyes burned behind his sunglasses.

"Darling!" Aziraphale gasped out, resisting the urge to rush to him, as he could see that he was in the grips of something, and coming on him unawares would likely only make it worse. So, moving slowly, he walked across the room to his husband.

"Crowley?" he tried again. "Crowley, dearest...can you hear me?"

The demon didn't so much confirm or deny one way or the other. He simply made a small whimpering sound, hands briefly twitching, _clawing_ at the wall. Instead of tears, several tiny rivulets of fire ran down his cheeks. Nothing he did seemed to be getting through to him.

"No...no..._please!_" he begged of something Aziraphale couldn't see.

"Crowley?" he tried one more time before reaching out a hand to lay it lightly against the demon's shoulder. Instantly a flash of memory snapped through his mind.

_Michael...carrying away a newborn spark of divinity..._

_"Let me hold her," he begs, reaching. "Let me hold her just __**once!**__"_

_**L'estelle...my sweet starlight...**_

The angel cried out in agony as he pulled himself free of the memory. He was already apologizing as he tried to take a step back.

"Oh- darling, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-"

But Crowley didn't seem bothered by the fact that he'd unintentionally glimpsed his thoughts. No. In fact, he reached out to stop him pulling away, holding tightly to his wrist.

Afraid of triggering some new flashback, Aziraphale was careful in laying his hands back on the demon. He began by laying his free hand on Crowley's. When nothing happened, he moved in closer once more, gently resting his forehead against his husband's. He felt Crowley relax against him, breathing in his scent as he began to calm.

"You...you'd named her?" he asked softly, beginning to understand what had happened, what it was that had triggered the response.

"I...I- yeah," he admitted, sounding almost embarrassed, in spite of the fact he was still coming down from a particularly intense panic episode. "I- I know it- we should've done together, but...I dunno. It _felt_ right."

"L'estelle," he repeated in a gentle voice, trying the name out against his lover's lips. "It truly is a lovely name. And I suppose you did know her better than I ever will."

"She really...was beautiful," Crowley said softly, his voice aching, and even though he didn't cry this time, Aziraphale could still hear that anguish in his words.

"We really don't- _have_ to stay...if you don't want to," he reassured the demon, pressing a tender kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I'm sure Anathema wouldn't mind if we stepped out. We can always give her our gift later."

Shaking himself off after another long moment, the demon slowly nodded. "Might be for the best," he said with a swallow, pushing them both carefully away from the wall. "Who knows what one of the old biddies might say next."

Then, once he was standing on his own, Crowley moved over to where Anathema was sitting amongst the gaggle of women, easily lifting her up into the time stop.

"Wh- wha...what-" she started, gaze darting around in confusion.

"Nothing to worry about, my dear," Aziraphale rushed to reassure her. "Crowley's just stopped time."

"Right," she mumbled faintly, beginning to move about the space, looking at everyone else frozen perfectly in time. "Because that's a thing that happens."

"Sorry to interrupt the party, but I'm afraid one of the ladies gave Crowley a rather bad start with her name suggestion."

"What? Stella?" the young witch asked absently as she waddled in a circle around her husband, waving a hand in his face. But then she seemed to realize what such a thing would mean, looking back at both of them. "Was...was that-"

"L'estelle," Crowley offered up, suddenly sounding very tired.

"Oh...oh- Crowley," she started, moving back toward him, and when Aziraphale saw the way she traced the air beside him with a single hand, he realized she was looking at his aura. Though he didn't know what it was she was seeing, he didn't imagine it was anything pleasant.

"Anyway, we- thought we might pop out for a walk or some such. Didn't want you to be alarmed when we disappeared."

"Do you think you'll be back?" Anathema asked, looking from Crowley over to him.

"Likely we shall. Though that may be one we have to...play by ear, as they say."

"All right, well, there was something I wanted to ask you about once the party was over, but I suppose I might as well get into it now while nobody's listening. Though...this isn't going to hurt any of them, is it?" she asked, gaze shifting between Newt and the Them. "Being stuck like this?"

"Nah," Crowley said with a dismissive wave. "After all, literally nothing's happening to them."

"And it doesn't hurt _you?_" she pressed the demon. "Holding time still like this?"

"It may do after a time," Aziraphale answered before Crowley could lie. "But it should be fine for a short stint like this. What was it you wanted to ask about?"

"Agnes' new prophecies. I was wondering if perhaps you thought all this could be related to the third prophecy."

"Wait- _new_ prophecies?" Crowley asked, looking between Anathema and Aziraphale. "What's this about new prophecies?"

"You didn't tell him?" Anathema asked him.

"It never really came up," Aziraphale explained, because indeed it had not. He honestly hadn't thought of the new prophecies any _since_ going to rescue Crowley. "When Gabriel and the others...took you...I did everything I could to find you. When nothing worked, I grew desperate."

"So we got Tracy to help us get in touch with Agnes," Anathema picked up when he fell off. "We thought- something in the other book might be of some help finding you. She gave us five prophecies that would've been in the book."

"The Final Five Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter," Aziraphale said quietly, more to himself. But when he continued, it was to the witch. "Well...to be quite honest, I didn't really look at any of the other prophecies. The first one told me where I needed to go, so I went. I take it you- have the other four?"

"I do. I wrote them all down," she said, nodding them out of the front area and back into a sort of study, one half stuffed with books and the other half with stripped computer parts. Pulling a notebook onto the desk, she quickly flipped it open to a page bookmarked roughly three-quarters of the way through. "I've been studying them since you've been gone. When you told us about the new pregnancy, I thought it was likely the third prophecy is about your children."

"You said..._children?_" Crowley pressed, voice dropping into even more of a hiss.

"I- right. It's- oh, here. Just have a look," she said, running a finger along lines written in spidery green letters.

"Two awake. Arise! A prince and princess shalle be born unto the Serpente and the Guardiane," Aziraphale began to read aloud from the page, but quickly came to a stop upon reaching those words, staring at them for a long moment before lifting his eyes to Crowley's.

"Two?" his husband repeated in an almost thunderstruck voice. "A prince and princess? It's...it's _twins?_"

"Well...I rather suppose that is the meaning one would take from that...yes," the angel returned, feeling a hesitant smile turn up the corners of his mouth.

"And the- 'Serpente and the Guardiane', that's...you and me?"

"Agnes does refer to us that way several times throughout her prophecies. I see no reason why she would change. Does...does anything _seem_ different to you? From the last time?" he asked, reaching out a hand to lay it on the demon's forearm.

Crowley shrugged, focus perceptibly shifting inward. "Not- really? Nothing _feels_ any different _yet._ But I guess all that stuff happens later. Might not even _be _twins yet. But...if they really are..." he said, voice falling softly away as his hand drifted to his middle, stroking gently, mindlessly for several moments. Then he pulled Aziraphale's hand down with his so they could feel together. Not that there was anything there yet to physically feel, but to feel the tender warmth of the new spark.

_Sparks?_

Aziraphale looked up into Crowley's eyes once more, and for a moment, it was just the two of them in the room when they leaned in for a loving kiss.

"Guys?" Anathema interrupted hesitantly a few moments later. "That's not all. There's...there's more to the prophecy."

He had seen that, but the angel supposed a part of him hadn't _wanted_ to see the rest. The fact they were most likely having twins was news enough with what had happened already. Couldn't they stop there? Couldn't they have just this little bit of joy for a moment?

Couldn't his love be spared even one more heartbreak?

_We should be so lucky._

"A prince and princess shall be born unto the Serpente and the Guardiane," he began again when he looked back to Anathema's notebook, "the Children of the Weeping Earth. Marke ye well theyr pathe, for they sow the twilight and the dawne in theyr wake. Warie be, for...for wonne to darkness they be drawne, and wonne to light they be showne."

"That...could mean any number of things," Anathema said into the following stillness when neither of them said anything. "Agnes could only ever- predict in a way she could comprehend. It could mean one kid will have more angelic traits and the other will have more demonic ones. It doesn't have to mean that-"

"One'll be good and one'll be evil?" Crowley finished for her.

"We know, Anathema dear. If _anyone_ understands how complex these things can be, the two of us do. But it is no doubt of note that Agnes chose to make mention of it in her prophecy at all," Aziraphale started to explain. "It means _something_...even if we don't yet know what."

"Definitely children of a new apocalypse, if I've ever heard of any," Crowley said in a voice that Aziraphale immediately recognized as his attempt at being casual while concealing just how much the conversation was hurting him. "Really no idea what she might've been going for with Children of the Weeping Earth. But...what I'm gonna take from all that is...if nothing else...these two will be able to _live_. I'll take it for what it's worth," he said, moving away from the two of them.

"Of course, dearest," the angel said, following after him, relieved when the demon didn't continue his retreat. In fact, he allowed Aziraphale to take his hand again. His grip was not desperate, as it had been before, but it was certainly firm, silently telling the angel that the contact was wanted.

"There are- other prophecies," Anathema reminded them. "But those can probably wait until next time. I don't want to keep you."

"So sorry to interrupt the shower," Aziraphale said as she came to hug them.

"No thing, boys. I was getting bored with it anyway. There's a lot going on right now," she said, all three of them careful of her bulge as they hugged. "We'll be able to do this for you guys in about six months."

Whatever Aziraphale had meant to say died in his throat when he heard and felt Crowley gasp beside him.

"Crowley? What is it, love?"

"She...she _kicked_," he said, nearly choking on the words.

"Felt that, did you," Anathema said with a small chuckle, wincing as she took a step back. "Yeah, she does that. Plays kickball with my liver all night sometimes. I guess this time she knows she's got some future playmates nearby," the young mother-to-be said as she took the demon's hand in hers, guiding it to rest back against her swollen belly. Then she nodded Aziraphale over. "You want to feel, too?"

Moving in beside his husband, the angel laid his hand next to his on the witch's middle, and almost immediately began to feel what he hadn't from her other side – tiny, nearly rhythmic jabs just beneath his hand. He hadn't had much opportunity to experience this with his own daughter. She had only moved a handful of times before...before they had been taken. And even then, nothing nearly this strong. She...L'estelle...had been something entirely new. Some intertwining of a physical form and an ethereal true form – a being one within herself as he and Crowley never could be. She had been _so_ beautiful, and she...

"Hello," he said softly, feeling several tears slip down his face as he spoke to the tiny light beneath his hand. "Hello, little girl."

"Gonna be just as pretty as your mother," he heard Crowley saying as the demon slipped his free hand into his, the strength of that grip the only thing telling of what was happening beneath the surface.

"Just as stubborn, more like," the witch returned with a saddened smirk as she laid her own hand over theirs on her belly.

"s'pretty much what I meant," Crowley said with a mischievous smirk of his own. Aziraphale more felt than saw him lift the time stop, quickly raising several cries of shock and calls for Anathema.

The witch wrinkled her eyebrows at Crowley, as if to ask 'really?'. Then she was calling out, "In the study."

Newt appeared in the doorway mere moments later, still holding his tea tray and looking both flustered and mildly panicked. But the panic eased somewhat when he saw who his wife was with.

"Oh, all right. Just more angel-demon stuff."

"Is there any other kind of 'stuff' for us?" Anathema teased, but then she was groaning, drifting over to the desk to half-collapse in exhaustion.

"Anathema!" Newt started in worry, nearly dropping the tea tray as he rushed into the room, but almost immediately she was waving him off.

"Nothing to worry about. I've just been on my feet too long. No need to start panicking and calling doctors. It's not time yet," she reassured her husband.

"I know. I understand," he said, voice a tad shaky as he set the tray down and moved to one knee beside her. "But I worry. Let me worry about you. _Somebody_ has to."

Exchanging glances with one another over the young couple, the older couple took their cue to slip out quietly, heading out from Jasmine Cottage to the streets of Tadfield.

For awhile, they said nothing. Just walked hand in hand through the unaccustomed peace of the little village. Granted, they drew a few more stares here than they would've done in Soho, but it mattered little to either. After a time, the pair happened to come across a little ice cream shop; one they hadn't yet tried out on any of their handful of visits to Tadfield, but a shop which Adam and his friends were always on about.

Well, no time like the present.

It was several minutes later, now strolling with cones of vanilla and strawberry ice cream in hand, that Crowley spoke up for the first time in an hour or so.

"Angel...I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asked his partner, completely confused.

"I just- I never seem to know anymore what's gonna set me off. I keep telling you lot not to treat me like glass and I can't even...when a little thing like a _name_-"

"That _isn't little_, Crowley," he insisted firmly, coming to a stop on the walk. The demon moved a few steps further before coming to a halt himself. "She was our child...and L'estelle was the name you chose for her. Of _course_ it means something to you. Even a name similar to it...you could hardly help responding to it."

"I'm supposed to be _getting over this_, though," the serpent snarled, the sound of his ice cream cone cracking as he crushed it in his fist almost as loud as a gunshot to Aziraphale's ears. "She- she's _gone._ She's gone and I couldn't save her. How am I supposed to even _start_ to make room for a new one, _two_ even, if I can't get over her?"

"Get over?" the angel repeated in mild shock, coming up slowly behind his lover. Something inside of him clenched painfully when he reached out to touch the demon's elbow and he flinched. "Dearest, you- you _loved her._ You _still_ love her. I can't imagine why you would _want_ to get over loving your own daughter."

Tensing briefly at the words, Crowley shook his head as he started to turn back to him. "Angel, that's not- that isn't what I-"

"No!" Aziraphale started sharply. "I- I can't imagine _why_ you feel as though you need to forget about her. That isn't how it works. She was _ours_...yours and mine...and- even if she was only alive for a few _minutes_, we both loved her. We'll always love her. You don't just 'get over' that. I- I suppose all you really do is...learn to live with it," he offered up, voice falling away meekly as his gaze fell to the stretch of ground between them.

"Heh...heheh. How- how do you suppose humans do it?" Crowley asked him, fully facing him now. "Speaking as someone who's had several...I don't think one life is enough to grieve like that. It's just- it's _too much_."

"By remembering that the love they felt isn't gone?" he suggested softly, reaching out to take the demon's strawberry ice cream-covered hand in his own. "Having felt it once, it stays...always...as our love existed side by side with the pain of our separation for so many ages."

"Really thought we were done with all that," the serpent groaned, squeezing his hand a little tighter. "Love and pain."

"Well...love makes the pain worth it...I think," he said, running a thumb over the back of his husband's hand. "Even though we lost her...L'estelle is still with us. I- I know it's not- really the same," he started before Crowley could interrupt him. "But...she is. She will always be part of us...and part of her brother and sister. And...just because you love L'estelle doesn't mean you love these two new ones less, or love _her_ less to love the twins. It would be like saying you had to love _me_ less to love them properly. _Do_ you love me less, you wily old serpent?"

"Never," the demon answered without hesitation, utterly serious, moving in to press a kiss to his lips. The angel only had a few moments to enjoy the depth of feeling in that kiss before Crowley was pulling back, leaving only just enough space between them to whisper against his lips, "Could sooner decide we actually _needed_ an apocalypse than I could love my angel any less. My bounty is as boundless as the sea...my love as deep," he began with another sweet peck of lips. "The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."

"I _knew_ you had a soft spot for the gloomy ones," Aziraphale couldn't quite help teasing, a bright smile welling up through his downcast expression.

"What can I say? Will knew his stuff," Crowley said with a little smile of his own. "Though I neither confirm nor deny that _I_ may have had something to do with that line. How else was I supposed to feed you poetry?"

"Oh, you would've found a way. I'm quite sure," the angel said, and with the barest wisp of a miracle, he had them both clean and with fresh cones of ice cream in their hands. "Well, then...shall we be off?"

"Probably best, yes," Crowley said, falling into step beside him as they started to head back in the general direction of Jasmine Cottage. "After all, _somebody_ ought to be there to explain when that last present decides to start smoking."

Aziraphale sighed, shaking his head as he slipped his free hand into Crowley's. Maybe he _shouldn't_ have left the demon in charge of wrapping?

Ah, well. The young couple could at least handle themselves. He knew _that_ much.

XxX

**Then**

The morning of June 2nd was pleasantly warm and sunny with just the right amount of cloud coverage – the perfect day for a wedding out of doors. And if certain occult and etherial parties with certain abilities had something to do with the absolutely perfect day, well, who was really going to question it?

Crowley and Aziraphale had met Newt's mother in the days leading up to the wedding – a perfectly acceptable woman who was just happy a girl had even looked twice at her son. But in the flurry of the woman's arrival, the pair had somehow managed to miss meeting Anathema's mother.

"Okay, fair warning, since I'm not sure I'm going to be present to mediate," Anathema had informed them in advance of the event, "my mother is really looking forward to meeting the two of you. She's never met an angel or a demon. She's a very- intense woman, my mom. She typically means well...unless you've pissed her off. Then you go at your own peril. Just...try to take it in stride, if you could...I guess...is what I'm saying."

The pair wasn't completely certain what to expect on the day of the wedding. Unconsciously, Crowley found himself thinking, they had probably both begun to treat it like a report to home office, not knowing what might come, but prepared to approach it like a battle.

"And I do believe that's our madame," Aziraphale half-whispered to him early on in the afternoon, and the demon inwardly berated himself for the flinch as he lifted his eyes to search the small crowd gathering on the field for the ceremony. But he quickly picked out a woman whom their little witch rather distinctly took after, both in looks and in bearing. The woman wasted no time in marching over to them.

"And the pair of you must be Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley," she said, plainly trying not to smile _too_ brightly.

"Yes," Aziraphale returned, quickly taking the lead and reaching out to shake the woman's hand. "And you must be Anathema's mother."

"Gabriella," she introduced herself. "Gabriella Device."

The pair couldn't quite help exchanging subtle _looks_ at that one.

_Gabriella? Really?_

"I apologize. I just- I've never met anyone...quite like either of you."

"Quite all right, dear lady. Most people haven't."

Crowley could feel the woman's scrutiny as she shifted to shake his hand, which he accepted only reluctantly. She was staring at him with much more than her eyes, after all.

"Forgive me, Mr Crowley. I've never had the opportunity to observe an aura such as yours." Re:demon's aura. "Who could say if all of your kind are like this, but...you are fairly _glowing_."

"Glowing, is it?" he asked, looking at her over the tops of his sunglasses, taking a small bit of pleasure in the surprised widening of her eyes.

"Well, that's- really the only way I can think to describe what it is I'm seeing. An aura is already a corona of light, the outward expression of a soul, but yours is...well...almost radiant. Your energy is absolutely vibrating with joy."

"You know, I don't believe she's wrong," Aziraphale agreed. "You _have_ seemed much happier this past month. Any particular reason why?"

"None I can think of," he said, giving an expansive shrug as he yawned rather widely, using the motion to subtly slip his hand into the angel's. "I've honestly felt more _tired_ this month than anything else."

"Then that has done nothing to dull that lovely aura," the elder witch said with an almost captivated smile. "I feel I ought to thank you for gracing my daughter with such beauty on the day of her wedding."

"Yeah. Sure, no problem," the demon returned absently, trying to get more of a feel for himself. What was it the woman was seeing?

"Well, I'm sure you have a fair few other family members to greet," Aziraphale said in an effort to make a graceful exit from the conversation. "The ceremony ought to be beginning before too long. See you at the reception?"

"Of course. A pleasure to meet both of you," Gabriella Device said with a nod before heading off into the crowd once again.

"It wasn't a complete falsehood, I suppose," Aziraphale said once she had gone. "We ought to be making our way to our seats fairly soon-"

"Actually...do you think maybe we could hit up the hors d'Oeuvres one more time?" the serpent found himself asking almost before the question had properly registered in his mind. "Those goat cheese dates take me right back to Alexandria."

"Well, I won't say no to _that_," the angel said with a pleased sigh as he allowed himself to be led back toward the table. "They _are_ very nearly divine, after all."

Crowley had never entirely understood Aziraphale's love of food. He enjoyed it himself from time to time, but not in the nearly _visceral_ way the angel seemed to. _That_ sort of pleasure he derived just from _watching_ his angel eat. And now from several more _interesting_ activities, as well. Although, maybe Aziraphale was starting to rub off on him in more ways than one? He'd found himself enjoying food more and more these past few weeks. He'd even found himself actually _feeling_ hungry from time to time. The sound he made now as he bit into another goat cheese stuffed date bordered on obscene.

"I must say, dearest, I do believe you've been eating more these past few weeks, as well," Aziraphale commented after enjoying another of the dates himself. "Finally developing a taste for the finer things in life?"

"Suppose so," he said as he reached for another date. "To use your word, these things are absolutely _scrumptious_."

"_Ooh_," the angel shivered with delight at the near _moan_. "I'll tell you what's scrumptious. That _voice_. I imagine there are more..._varied_ delicacies we might enjoy this evening."

"I'm up for it, if you are," Crowley returned with a smirk, popping another date into his mouth with particular theatricality. "But...I think she was right, y'know."

"Right?"

"Anathema's mum. I mean- I have been more tired recently, but...I guess I _have_ been feeling happier. I dunno," he finished with a shrug. "It's nice."

Aziraphale fairly beamed at his words, leaning in to press a quick, but very heartfelt kiss to his lips, the lovely taste of the dates lingering between them. Then he was whispering against his lips, "That really is wonderful to hear, darling. I do hope it continues. I almost hate to interrupt your newfound rapport with food, but we really had best be getting to our seats. We'll see where the evening takes us, shall we?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," the demon agreed, grabbing at least one more date before Aziraphale began to lead him away from the table.

Who could say how Newt had gotten either Anathema or Shadwell himself to agree to it, but the retired witchfinder sergeant was acting as the officiant for their wedding. Something about his 'technical' military status qualifying him for it. Neither of them had wanted anything to do with a church wedding, so the sergeant had been their next option. The man now stood beneath a small canopy at the head of a moderately-sized crowd, decked out in what passed for witchfinder regalia, which was really just his uniform spruced up by Madam Tracy and with a few added medals for who knew what. Tracy herself sat at the front of the crowd with the two mothers, looking so proud she might actually somehow burst. Newt himself was standing with Shadwell, thankfully _not_ dressed in his witchfinder uniform, just in a suit with a few patches from the uniform, probably at Shadwell's insistence. All day, Crowley had been overhearing people quietly whispering about which branch of the service the two men had served with, but no one could ever come back with a definitive answer, so the gossip continued. Likely by the end of the evening, there would be some wild story about how they were some undesignated special forces branch. Whatever the tale wound up being, Crowley had little doubt he would enjoy witnessing the evolution of it.

He and Aziraphale preferred to keep to the back of the gathering themselves, still present, but also separate from it all. That had always been their place on this planet, but now, at least, they could occupy it together. From where they sat, he could spot the Them with their families, each of them fidgeting in their nice clothes. Except for Pepper, who sat quite proudly in an outfit that her mother had clearly let her select from the boys' section of the shop. She and Adam would be ducking out very soon to join the wedding procession. They were all just waiting on their cues from Anathema.

"Do you ever...think about it?" Crowley found himself asking of a sudden. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately – speaking before his thoughts had properly caught up with him.

"About what?" the angel whispered back softly. "Marriage?"

"Yeah. I mean, _we_ can't. Obviously."

"Oh, obviously," Aziraphale returned quickly. "You can't properly set foot in a church and I imagine if I tried to, I would be detained or some such nonsense. But...if we could..."

"If we could...maybe something like this," Crowley said, voice quiet as he reached out for Aziraphale's hand.

"Yes...something like this," the angel agreed, returning the grip just as readily. "Something like this would be nice."

At that, some musical cue was given and everyone was seated. Once the simple cloth aisle was clear, Adam Young was striding down it with a large basket of roses and apple blossoms in hand. Grabbing handfuls of the red and white petals, he was soon scattering them through the air in dramatic arcs, getting just as many on the crowd as he did on the aisle.

Next to come down the aisle was Pepper, grinning triumphantly with, in Crowley's opinion, a green velvet pillow that was just a little too large, bearing the wedding rings upon it. With these initial tasks finished, Adam and Pepper took the places of the maid of honor and the best man respectively.

Then came Anathema herself.

The young witch was a victorian vision in white, her gown an elegant combination of modern lines and vintage lace patterning. Her veil was so thin as to almost be negligible and this was topped with a crown of roses twined into her loose-flowing hair. If anyone was radiant today, it was her...her and Newt as he watched her walk toward him down the aisle.

_Radiant._

The words of the ceremony started to fall away for Crowley as certain words and thoughts he had heard expressed today started to coalesce in his mind.

_Radiant. Glowing..._

He had heard words like that before. But...

_...fairly glowing...almost radiant...absolutely vibrating with joy..._

He could _see_ Shadwell speaking, could _see_ Newt and Anathema looking occasionally mortified by something he'd said, but ultimately happy, enamored of each other. He could _see_ the wedding happening, but he heard nothing. Nothing but the rush of wind in his ears.

_"You __**have**_ _seemed much happier this month."_

_Happy...radiant...glowing..._

But he'd been so _tired._

_Tired but happy. Like carrying a secret..._

The hunger...the fierce _joy_ in eating...

_"...I do believe you've been eating more these past few weeks..."_

He almost _never_ ate...but to need to so suddenly...as if...as if it wasn't just _him_ who needed it...

_"Fornication under consent of the Queen..."_

_The hot taste of divinity against his tongue..._

_"__**Aziraphale...**__"_

_A spear of divine light __**piercing**_ _him...__**thrusting**_ _to the heart of him...spilling precious light upon every darkened corner of his shadowed self..._

_**Oh, love. My love...**_

A single understanding...a single soul...

_"So you wouldn't want children of your own then?"_

And then he _felt it_...the seed of divine fire at the core of his being. And that seed was impregnated with his own infernal flame – both divine and demonic. It was part of him, but also not, because it was part of Aziraphale, too. It was both of them, but also a being of itself. Somehow..._somehow_...they had-

Last of all, a memory surfaced in his mind – a moment from so long ago, it had nearly been forgotten.

He remembered an angel, name long forgotten, his being replete with heavenly grace, luminous in his travail, singing even as he suffered, struggling to bring forth the new light. And when he at last reached the point where his being could no longer contain so much raw fire, the new beacon of holy light poured forth into existence – a tiny, fledgling angel.

The very first newborn.

And it was that same sort of energy that welled up inside of him now. A little angel. But a little demon, as well. And maybe...just a little human. As he watched Newt and Anathema kiss and walk down the aisle, he finally allowed the words to form in his mind.

_I...I'm...I'm going to have a baby. __**Aziraphale's**_ _baby._

The demon was in such a state of shock, he would've almost sworn he'd blacked out. It wasn't until he started to hear Aziraphale's voice that he began to regain his awareness.

"Crowley? _Crowley!_" the angel's words slowly started to pierce the fog of his awareness. "Dearest, _please._ Talk to me. What's wrong?"

"Why does- s'mthin' have to be wrong?" he mumbled with perfect grace.

"I- Crowley...I don't know how you can have failed to notice this, but...you've time stopped."

"Wha-" he started in amazement, finally managing to look around and see that Aziraphale was right. The world around them was in full stop. He and his angel were sitting in the midst of a completely frozen wedding crowd, mid cheer for a bride and groom who were stuck mid-stride down the aisle. "Oh."

"Oh? What, exactly, is going on, love?"

"I..."

What was he _supposed_ to say? 'Oh, hey. Looks like you may have gotten me up the spout. But it's all fine. Let's just go back to enjoying the party. Everything's perfectly normal.' Before he could think too much on it, though, before he could outright panic or any number of other reactions, he simply came out with it, words slipping from his mouth before he could stop them.

"I'm pregnant."

For a moment, Aziraphale just stared at him, not in any way comprehending. But after several minutes of this blank staring, he blinked and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm going to need that one more time. You're _what_ now?"

"Expecting. Knocked up. With child. Bun in the oven. In the family way. Little stranger. My eggo is preggo. I really don't know how else you want me to say it, Aziraphale," he snapped back at him as he shot up out of his chair, starting to pull himself out of the crowd.

"Well, you- just- wait!" the angel protested, starting to stumble after him. "I mea- how long have you known?"

"Mm, 'bout- five minutes now," he admitted as he turned back to the angel.

"And you're _certain?_"

"D'you think I'd _tell you_ if I wasn't certain? It just...it clicked. Everything fell into place and I realized...that when we- when you and I...when we made love," he said softly, unable to refer to what had happened that night as simple fucking, "something happened. I don't know how, but...just look," he insisted, taking hold of one of Aziraphale's hands and pressing it against his belly.

"_Oh_," the angel murmured in quiet shock after several moments of staring into the vastness of his true being, finding the tiny, flickering light at the core of him. "My dear...my love..."

"Is that all you've got?" the demon tried to snap again, but all he could manage was a somewhat broken-sounding snarl.

And then Aziraphale was kissing him.

Crowley's eyes flickered open briefly in surprise, but it wasn't long before he was sinking back into the kiss, taking pleasure in the angel's sudden joy.

"It's so wonderful, Crowley," his lover was soon whispering against his lips. "When we didn't think it possible- and I know how you've wanted this."

Had he? Yes. That much he could admit to himself. It was something that had lingered in his thoughts ever since that first fledgling...ever since he had witnessed Eve holding little Cain in her arms. He'd just...never thought he would _deserve_ such a thing. Just like he'd never thought he would deserve Aziraphale's love. But to see the angel's joy now...it allowed a small spark of happiness to wake in his own heart. Smiling softly, he drew the angel into another kiss. He didn't know how they'd done it, but they had. Somehow...somehow the two of them together...had created a new light.

But almost in the same instant, their fragile joy was tainted with fear. When they looked into each other's eyes again, the realization struck them both in almost the same moment.

"Hell."

"Heaven."

"There's no way they're gonna go for this," the demon said, running a hand through his hair as he took a step back from the angel. "Either of them."

"A child of both realms?" Aziraphale continued softly, reaching out his hands once more to place them over Crowley's still-flat stomach. "No. They _could_ not. This...our child...our child is living proof that there doesn't have to be a war. That we don't have to fight one another..."

"Yeah, try telling that to Beelzebub or Gabriel," Crowley ground out, laying his hands over Aziraphale's.

"Do you think they might...already know?" the angel wondered aloud, his voice tinged with fear. "Heaven, at least, does keep track of this sort of thing."

"Who knows? I mean- they _might_ not, since we gave them all some pretty strict orders to leave us alone. But our little stunt will only keep them at bay for so long."

"And even if they don't interfere, they must certainly keep tabs of some kind. Crowley, what- what'll we _do?_"

"I don't know," the serpent admitted after a time, drawing the angel back into his arms, both holding and clinging to him. "We- we're just gonna have to be really damn careful. We _can't_ let them get at this little bugger."

"No," Aziraphale agreed with quiet conviction, despite his fear. "We will never."

Then, sharing one last kiss, the pair slipped seamlessly back into real time, back into the wedding reception, as if they'd never been gone. Because, really, they hadn't.

They enjoyed the party, joyed in the young couple's happiness, laughed at the antics of the Them, ate, drank, danced a little (so much as either of them _could_ dance outside of the gavotte, anyway), Anathema even convinced Crowley to take part in her bouquet toss. They enjoyed themselves and the time spent as part of the odd little family, but underneath the joy of the evening, there was the growing sense of worry – the feeling that this might all come to an end soon...that the peace they had won might already be over.

Crowley had thought they were being discrete about their sudden tension, but by the end of the night, after the other guests had left and the two mothers had gone off to oversee cleanup, Anathema proved to him just how wrong he was.

"All right. What is it?" the witch asked them.

"Sorry?" Crowley returned, knowing perfectly well what she meant, but trying to play dumb.

"I don't know what happened, but you two have been wound tight all night. Did you have a fight or something?"

"Oh! No, my dear. Quite the opposite, in fact," Aziraphale rushed to reassure the young bride.

"So what's the _opposite_ of havin' a fight?" Shadwell asked, as if such a concept were foreign to him, which, to be fair, was probably true.

Crowley hardly needed the glance from his partner to surreptitiously start another time stop in order to protect the conversation from prying ears, human or otherwise. By this point, it was the pair of them, the newlyweds, Shadwell and Madam Tracy, and Adam, the only one of the Them who'd managed to convince his parents to let him come along home later.

"Well...do you remember the conversation we had at the anniversary gathering? About whether or not angels and demons could...reproduce...together?" Aziraphale asked them, pale face flushing just a touch.

"Yes," Newt answered slowly.

"Turns out we _can_," Crowley offered up while his angel struggled to find the words.

Looking between the two of them, Tracy's smile slowly grew until it almost seemed to split her face in two. "Oh- oh, my. Do- do you mean to say that the two of you...that you're-"

"We are going to be parents, yes," Aziraphale took over, taking the demon's hand in his.

"That's great news," Anathema started with a smile of her own, although they both already knew she could tell there was trouble.

"But...you boys are both...well..._boys_, ain't ye?" Shadwell was the one to ask. "How does tha' work exactly?"

"That is, in fact, _not_ correct, Sergeant. We have never been boys. We are an angel and a demon. We are...male-_seeming_, I suppose. Besides, we can't yet say just how much of this pregnancy will be physical, as opposed to metaphysical," Aziraphale explained as their intertwined hands shifted to rest over top of Crowley's belly.

"So...your kid's gonna be a not-all-human sort of kid? Like _me?_" Adam asked, gaze hopeful as he looked between them.

"Yeah, something like that," Crowley conceded. "Honestly, we have no idea what this little thing's gonna be."

"Doesn't matter _what_ it is, it's still gonna be like me," he insisted.

"Well...you're not wrong," Aziraphale said slowly.

"I can show him the ropes," the antichrist insisted. "I can be like a cousin or a- a big brother. Yeah, that's it! I always wanted a little brother!"

"Heh, glad _somebody_ gets to be excited," Crowley said with a small, pained laugh.

"So...do we say congratulations?" Newt was the one to finally ask, starting to pick up on whatever it was his wife had seen from the start.

"Hard to say," Crowley answered. "We're pretty sure both Heaven and Hell'll have something to say about it. We just don't know how much or even _if_ they know yet. We're going to have to find some way of getting even further off their respective radars."

"Then we'll do whatever we have to to keep the three of you safe," Tracy insisted.

"Not sure there's anything you _can_ do, but thanks for the offer, just the same," Crowley said in response.

"Actually...I might be able to come up with something if you give me a few weeks," Anathema said, her face already going pensive, sinking into her stores of occult knowledge.

"Well, if you really think you _can_, take all the time you need," Aziraphale said with a look that was part bafflement and part relief.. "We truly have nothing else at this juncture."

"Like Tracy said, we'll do whatever we have to," Anathema said, smiling as she also looked between the two of them, then down down to the place where their hands twined over Crowley's belly. "Doesn't matter _what_ it turns out to be. This kid's one of us. We'll fight for them."

Crowley didn't look over at Aziraphale as the humans started to plan. He simply gripped his hand tighter, both of their hands pressing that much more firmly against his body. Who could say what might happen? There was a lot to worry on, but...it seemed there was a lot to be happy about, too. Maybe they could muddle through this somehow?

The same way they'd muddled through everything else the last 6,000 years.

XxX


	3. But Somewhere in My Wicked, Miserable

(A/N) Hello again, my dears! So sorry these take so long. I'm just recovering from the stress of being a retail worker during the holiday season. Heheh, good times, good times. Again, I've loved hearing the stories you've all shared with me and I'm glad I've touched your lives in some way with my own. For a bit here, things will only get more difficult, but I hope my little story continues to be a comfort for all of you.

**I Knew You'd Be Our Angel**

_Chapter 3: But Somewhere in My Wicked, Miserable Past_

**Now**

It was roughly two weeks following the baby shower that Crowley found himself back in his flat. While Aziraphale still kept hours at the bookshop, the demon found himself increasingly keeping to their cottage rather than venturing into London. The cottage, they were relatively certain, was safe. Everywhere else? Well, everywhere else required a little work.

And he did that work diligently when he arrived at his place, weaving the subtle but necessary changes in the fabric of reality to prevent himself showing up on either radar. While neither he nor Aziraphale were technically _attached_ to Heaven or Hell any longer, that also made it somewhat difficult to keep tabs on who was trying to kill them at any given moment. Not that that list was ever short, of course, but still...it was nice to be in the know.

He couldn't say what it was that had drawn him out. Probably just going stir crazy being cooped up. Which was interesting, because he distinctly remembered being exhausted at this stage the...

...the first time around.

And wasn't it interesting as well that just being back on Earth for a month had already felt like a _year_ to him? Days, weeks, months, even years and decades; it was all chump change to him. Nothing at all. But these last few weeks had just been _dragging_ by. Pregnancy really did make you crazy.

"Crazy and stupid," he muttered to himself as he moved about the flat, looking for who knew what. He shouldn't be here. He knew it...but...something just..._drew_ him.

"I don't know how to explain it," he grumbled, not really sure who he was talking to. Figuring he just needed to be _doing_ something, he went for a mister, cursorily watering his plants, even though they were their usual miraculously verdant selves. "Aziraphale better not have been spoiling you lot."

It wasn't the plants that had drawn him out, though. At least he didn't think so. There was just..._something_.

"The- other lot...maybe," he said, glancing uncertainly down at his midsection. He was getting to a point where he noticed. Still not anything physical. It was more that he didn't have to search to find the new presence within his own. That living flame didn't seem to be two distinct flames yet, but he supposed it wouldn't be if this was only the second month. Perhaps _they_ were making him stupid?

"So what do you want?" he asked aloud. "What do you want out here that can't be got at the cottage?"

_Happy_.

The thought hadn't come from him. He knew that much. That was ...it? Them? He and she? The it that would one day be a them?

"Happy?" he returned, confused. "'fraid I- don't quite follow."

_You're not happy._

"Course I'm not _happy_. I'm a demon; I'm _never_ happy...except...when I'm with your father, anyway," he conceded with a shrug. "Worried...frustrated...sad...scared...Satan, I am _so scared_," he ground out bitterly, spritzing water in ever-widening circles. "Not just scared _for_ you, but...scared I can't- love you like I should...after I lost your sister," he admitted, voice some twist of a growl and a small cry. Really, he was only confessing to this now because he didn't imagine he was being properly understood. He was so distracted with his own rambling, he almost didn't notice his latest spray of water.

Rainbow.

The violent spray of water droplets through the air caught the light in an arc before him, their colors falling in the painfully familiar pattern of a rainbow. The demon felt something in him twist in grief and anger as his attention shot upward.

"What is that?" he demanded in a low voice, not truly expecting an answer, but fairly certain She could hear, just the same. "Is that meant to be some sort of sick joke? Because if it is, it is in _very poor taste!_" he snarled.

He remembered the first rainbow a little too well. He remembered the interplay of light upon rain-washed air after Aziraphale's ridiculous platitudes about promises. He'd known even then he would never be able to forget it. So bright and colorful, meant to serve as some sort of deep-seated idea of beauty...it was like some abusive mother's gaudy, sickening display of contrition after a beating.

_Oh. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I was just so __**angry**__. Here. Look. I promise it will never happen again._

He recalled reading somewhere that humans referred to children born after the loss of another child as rainbow babies. He could see where _they_ might take comfort from the idea, but _him_...mostly it just made him feel sick.

"And that's just the worst joke of all, isn't it. Rainbows. I don't need any promises from you, old mum," he growled, almost threatening, for all the good such intentions would do him. "About six thousand years too late for that. We can handle this just fine on our own."

"Well, that's good to know, _Traitor_."

When speaking of the incident later, Crowley would at least be able to say that he didn't yelp or cry out. Neither did he jump or turn around. All he could seem to do in that moment was stand there, frozen to the spot, with the sound of that voice in his ear and a gush of liquid _fear_ pouring down his metaphorical spine. When he finally managed to turn and face the voice's owner, it was with that frigid coil of sheer terror permeating his entire being.

"Lord Beelzebub."

"Oh, don't insult me with the title, snake. I know it means less than nothing to you," the prince of hell snapped at him, though the expression on their face quickly shifted from annoyed to taunting. "I _do_ love what you've done with your hair, though. Didn't realize you were growing it out again. But then, I suppose three months in _captivity_ will do that to a person."

_...every atom, even the most intangible bits of his being, all of it in agony..._

_...screaming in pain as divine fire tore through him. Just because it couldn't seem to kill him didn't mean it wasn't painful..._

_...Michael's gloating sneer while observing Iruel's latest attempt at separating them. "Why would it even __**need**_ _to be a complete being? You would think it would be easier to remove while still developing."_

_"You'd think, but nothing about this little bastard's ever been easy."_

_...screaming...screaming...always __**screaming**__..._

_"Do you think your precious boyfriend will save you? Aziraphale can't help you now. If you want to see him again, you'll give this blasphemous creature up."_

_...whispered denial. He couldn't give their little one up. He __**wouldn't!**_ _He spat in Uriel's face..._

_"NAAAAGHH!"_

_...and he heard her cry...her tiny, helpless cry. She __**needed**_ _him. He couldn't let them take her-_

_"Let me hold her. Let me hold her just __**once!**__"_

_**L'estelle!**_

"What are you doing here?" he demanded in a sharp voice, struggling to throw off the memories, because he would be damned a second time if he allowed himself to break down now. "How did you even find me?"

"I didn't. I just knew you'd come back here eventually. So I waited. As for _why_ that is, I thought I'd congratulate you on your latest holy terror_. _Or should I say _terrorzz?_"

They knew.

Fuck. ._ !FuckFuckFUCK!_ They bloody fucking _knew!_

"Good news travels fast," he said, voice just a touch higher than normal. "Particularly, given that Aziraphale and Adam destroyed the Guf Records. If Heaven can't even keep track, how did _you_ find out?"

"Well, that's for me to know and you to...not know," they responded with a shrug and an ugly smile. "Heaven had their chance to claim your offspring. Now it'zz _our turn._"

"_Your_ turn?" Crowley repeated in quiet dread. If _Heaven_ had unleashed Hellish horrors in its efforts to take his daughter from him, he didn't _want_ to know what tortures Hell itself could unleash toward that end. Even so...whatever threat the prince was going to offer up against him and Aziraphale, against their _children_, he knew he was prepared to go through everything he had gone through already and worse...because they were _his_. He was _not_ going to give up the family he'd struggled so long for without a fight. Not after losing L'estelle. "If you think I'm just going to give over, you've got another thing-"

"_Pleazze_ don't go into the whole 'I'd die for them' schtick. Action hero doesn't suit you, Crowley. Let me speak a language you _will_ understand. Insurance," the demon prince started to explain, beginning to circle him.

"Insurance?" he pressed, fighting not to turn, to follow their path. He simply waited for them to step back into his field of vision.

"Just so. You do something for us and we'll do something for you. That's how it's alwayzz been, hasn't it?"

"What sort of something did you have in mind, Beelz?"

"Give them to us and we won't kill them. We won't kill you either."

"That- doesn't really sound like insurance to me."

"Oh, it izz," they said as they finally came back around to face him. "'s'not my fault you haven't figured it out yet."

"Insurance against who? Heaven?"

"Guess again."

"But...who else _is_ there?"

"Who indeed?" the demon lord returned with a knowing leer, beginning to move into his personal space, reaching out a hand toward his middle. "I'm offering you a deal here, Crowley. Now either you _take_ that deal or I can just drag all _three _of you back with me now, if you'd rather have tha-"

Before the prince of Hell could lay even a single finger on his body, Crowley was reacting. He'd removed a small glass sphere from a chain around his neck and, with Beelzebub not even a centimeter away from him, he pressed the little thing up against the side of their head.

"You're not laying one _finger_ on either of them, my _lord,_" he hissed, eyes flashing as they looked into theirs. "Don't suppose you have to guess what's in here."

"Holy water," they returned, not really a question, a look that was both amusement and a little fear twisting those eyes.

"Yup. Now you turn around and you walk out of here, don't look back even once, and I won't have to _use_ my husband's present. But if that hand touches flesh, I swear by his stylish tartan bowtie, I will end you," he promised, his voice leaving his throat as a low growl.

"Right," they said, their look continuing to be some odd mix of amusement and fear. "Because that won't hurt _you_ anymore...will it."

"Not a jot," he said, only partly lying, as he had learned the hard way that, while pregnant at least, holy water could not destroy him.

As Beelzebub backed away from him, he continued to hold the little sphere out, ready to use it if they gave him cause. They continued backing away with that same strangely mixed expression, not turning until they'd actually reached the door, and when they did turn, they didn't leave right away; just stood in the doorway.

"I wouldn't go getting attached, Crowley. Whichever side claims them, they'll be lost to you. One way or another, there _izz_ going to be a war, and you're already on the wrong side of it."

Then they were gone, leaving Crowley alone, frozen in place, hand still outstretched with the little sphere between his fingers. He couldn't say how long he stood like that, struggling to not shake apart altogether.

"Sides," he muttered to himself when he was finally capable of making himself speak again. "Why does it _always_ have to be sides?"

He struggled back several steps, not quite making it to the desk before his legs gave out on him, his fingers just brushing the edge of it as he went down. For a long while, he just sat there, huddled against the desk...shocked...trembling. Who knew how long he sat, helpless like that, before he managed to make himself pull out his cell phone. It was a battle with himself just to get a call through.

"A.Z. Fell's b-"

"They know," Crowley interrupted Aziraphale before he could get out anymore of his little speech.

"I- Crowley?" the angel pressed, worry immediately threading through his voice.

"Angel, they _know,_" he tried again.

"Who? _What_ do they know?"

"Hell. Hell knows about the twins," he said, voice more of a whisper now.

"Oh. Crowley, dearest, where are you?"

"Mayfair...the flat."

"What on _Earth_ are you doing there?"

"Dunno, I just...Angel..." he kept trying, not having much success in making his mouth obey him.

"Stay where you are. I'll be there in a moment."

And for all Crowley could tell, it really was just a moment. Whether it was an hour or a minute, it all felt the same to him. Sitting there trembling in misery, unable to summon the cool, indifferent exterior he'd perfected so well over the years. All in all, he was just left wondering if death really might be preferable at this point.

But then Aziraphale was gathering him in his arms.

"Oh, darling," the angel fussed, holding him close. "What happened? What have they done?"

Immediately, Crowley was clinging to him, not caring whether he seemed weak or not, just relieved his angel was there...that he wasn't alone anymore.

"Beelzebub...was here. I dunno how, but they bloody _knew_. Said that...if we gave the kids up...none of us would be killed."

"Well, that's just- it's _monstrous_. How could Hell _ever_ expect you to say yes?"

"After what- happened with Heaven...I can see where they'd think it could be a possibility," he conceded, nuzzling into Aziraphale's neck, just breathing in the scent and the life and the nearness of him. "But I would- actually _die_ first...before I handed _our kids_ over to either of them."

"Oh..." Aziraphale started, clearly upset by the idea. "Let's- let's get you sitting up, shall we?"

Once Crowley had nodded his consent, Aziraphale actually lifted him in his arms, carrying him around to the throne and settling him on it. Before long, he was pressing a glass of water into his hands. Briefly, the demon eyed the glass...such a human thing...a glass of water after an upset of any sort. A year ago, he might've laughed at the notion he would ever need such a thing. But while carrying, he'd found himself much more subject to the whims of his human form than he ever had been before. With a small, pained laugh, he took a sip of the cool liquid.

"I _hate_ to hear you talk about dying," the angel said in a quiet voice, leaning sedately against the desk while keeping a hand on Crowley's left arm. "As if it were the only other option."

"In this case, it may well be," he pointed out. "Beelze was- going on about _sides_ again."

"What sides?" Aziraphale demanded in frustration. "Without Adam, they have no ability to begin a war against each other. Unless..."

"Unless they're talking about starting a war against _us,_" Crowley said. "Against the world."

XxX

"But what chance would humans have in a war against Hell _and_ Heaven?"

The mild panic in Newt's voice as he asked the question was certainly understandable. After all, one did not typically discuss celestial warfare at teatime, but when it came down to the concept of actual fucking celestial warfare, well...one might also tend to not drag one's feet.

"Well...it _was_ technically a gang of human children who averted the Apocalypse the first time around," Anathema pointed out, taking a sip from the sugary monstrosity Aziraphale was reasonably certain had once been a cup of tea. The drink was now fifty percent table sugar and was accompanied by a jar of olives the mother-to-be had brought with her.

Following the incident at the flat, Aziraphale had rung Newt and Anathema. In light of the fact that the young witch really could give birth any week now, the angel had volunteered for he and Crowley to come out to Tadfield, but Anathema had insisted that she and her husband were coming to their cottage instead, saying that it was safer, and she wasn't wrong, but Aziraphale still felt guilty for making her make the trip.

"Yeah, but that was before both planes were angry at humanity as a whole. Back then they were just hacked off at Adam, and he had the ability to tell them all off. Don't know that he quite has the same type of power anymore, and now we've got not one, but _two_ races of supernatural beings with reality warping powers out for all our heads. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but those, to me, seem like some _painfully_ long odds. What are we legitimately supposed to do in this situation?" he asked all of them, his tea undrunk on the table before him.

"Maybe...this is what Beelzebub meant...by whichever side claims them," Crowley mused absently, his sunglasses back in place after his run-in with the prince of Hell. He was not drinking tea, just casually noshing on a bag of crisps. He'd at first said he wasn't hungry, but the pair of siblings growing inside of him had quickly disagreed with that.

"Do you mean like...these two children fighting on the side of humanity?" Anathema asked him.

"Or Heaven and Hell," Aziraphale put in, his voice just as quiet as his husband's as he stared into his own tea, which he'd had exactly one sip of. Normally he quite enjoyed his tea, but now it seemed _he_ was the one with no appetite.

And that of itself must surely be a sign of some sort of end times.

"Could that be it? I mean- I suppose the impression we all got before was that _neither_ of your people wanted your baby to exist," Anathema said, looking uncertainly between the two of them.

"Was definitely the _impression_ I got from Heaven each time one of them tried to _tear her out of me_," Crowley hissed, his voice thick with venom as he crushed a handful of crisps in his fist. "Whatever their _intentions_ were, they succeeded in making sure she didn't exist."

"I'm sorry to ask this. I know it's not easy for you to look back on it, but...did you ever get any idea of exactly what it was they wanted?" the witch asked the demon, her countenance firm, but the look nothing but sympathetic.

With the sunglasses in place, Aziraphale knew it was difficult for their human companions to see Crowley's expression, but he could feel the tension in the space next to him...could feel the silent terror building with every moment as his beloved was plunged into memories of horrors the likes of which he knew he had no conception of.

"Crowley?" he started gently, fearful of causing another transference by touching him. "Dearest...it's _done._ Please- come back to me."

"I...no," the serpent finally exhaled on a broken breath, hand reaching out for Aziraphale's without turning to look at him. Slowly, he began to come back from the grip of his waking nightmare. "Mostly I'd thought- that _they_ thought she was an abomination. That they had some sort of sacred charge to destroy her. But...if all they wanted was to make sure she didn't side with humanity..."

Aziraphale felt a similar kernel of anger flicker awake in his own heart as Crowley's grip on his hand tightened. He didn't know if this made it better or worse – that the death- no...the _murder_ of their child...that it had been for the sake of another ridiculous, needless war, and not merely the result of Heaven's fear and ignorance. Ultimately, he supposed, it didn't truly _matter_ if it was better or worse. This would still go down as one of the worst things either of them had ever experienced in all their years. With every new day, every new revelation of _exactly_ what his love had gone through, he felt less and less guilt for what he and Adam had done to save Crowley.

"They won't win this time," he promised, gripping the demon's hand just as fiercely. "We won't _let_ them. We must put all of our efforts toward keeping the three of you safe. I didn't- protect you before. Perhaps if I _had_-"

"Angel-"

"No. It's true. You _know_ it is," he argued, lifting Crowley's hand to his lips for a brief kiss, looking at him only out of the corner of his eyes. "Part of it is my fault. I knew what they were capable of. I just never thought..."

"You didn't know," Anathema told him firmly. "You can feel guilty all you want, but you couldn't have known what they would do or when they would strike. That's not on you. The only thing for us to worry about today is how to protect Crowley and the babies _now,_" she continued, quickly shifting into all business mode. "First step is probably not to leave the cottage for the next- what is now- seven months?"

"Something like that," Crowley returned, his grip on Aziraphale's hand becoming less desperate and more soothing, giving comfort as well as receiving it. "Couldn't tell you what the exact numbers are. Though...this time I think it might be better to stick to a more human timetable."

"How do you mean?" Newt asked him, finally taking a sip of his tea.

"Before, we- we really had no idea what was happening. I think I've got a better handle on things this time. I've been able to get distinct thoughts much earlier than I did before. You know how it was all...much more metaphysical than physical before?"

Anathema nodded. "I remember you seemed like you were barely showing before...before they took you."

"Right," his husband continued with a shudder. "Because back then it was more about the- more than human being that was developing. Angel...demon...whatever she was...and that- that protected her...while she was still a part of me...and I think I might've been unconsciously encouraging that- those three months. But I think it's got to be different this time."

"How so?" Aziraphale asked, looking at the demon properly now. It was the first time he was hearing this from Crowley, but since this was all still distinctly _his_ experience, he was more than prepared to listen to what he was thinking.

"These two...if we want to protect them from Hell...I think we need to prepare them to live more human lives. I've got to let that human development happen."

"And...any idea how you actually _do_ that, dearest?" he asked.

"None at all. Open to suggestions here," the demon admitted as he slumped back into the couch, his hand slipping from the angel's. Sighing in frustration, he ground out, "Haagh, what I wouldn't give for a good hard _drink_ right now."

Aziraphale smiled faintly as he looked down at his husband. "What? A few thousand hits of stardust wasn't enough to quench that thirst?"

That one actually managed to draw a small laugh from the serpent. "Heh, that's _probably_ why we're even _in_ this situation again so soon if we're being honest."

"Sorry...stardust?" Newt asked, raising an eyebrow at them.

"The energy cast off by celestial bodies," Aziraphale began to explain. "To the pair of us in true form, it carries an effect similar to alcohol on humans if imbibed too deeply. I would say there was a fair bit of...drinking to forget...while we were away."

"Because it would just be cruel for God not to provide an outlet for _all_ of Her creatures to get wasted," Anathema said with a tired grin.

"Too right," Crowley agreed, reaching for the bag of crisps again, almost in spite of himself.

"Well, then we can all go on a bender when the mamas can drink again, because _damn _if I don't miss it, too," the almost-mother said, the grin becoming more fond, even in her exhaustion. "In the meantime, though, only real suggestion I have is to just...treat it all like a human pregnancy, I suppose."

"What?" Crowley started, lifting his head a little. "Start going to mama yoga classes? Find a new mums group? Buy into all this New Agey stuff you humans love so much these days?"

Aziraphale felt a small swell of amusement when he watched the young witch attempt to suppress a laugh. "As..._interesting_ a visual as I'm sure that would be, no. That's not really what I mean. I mean treat them and yourself like you're carrying two human babies inside of you and not two potential Antichrist-like figures who may or may not one day be compelled to destroy the world. Y'know...as one does," she finished with a helpless shrug.

"As one does," the serpent agreed with her, glancing at her over the tops of his sunglasses. "Well, good a suggestion as any, really. We'll give it a go."

"Perhaps I ought to keep the shop closed during," Aziraphale found himself suggesting after a time. "After all, I need to be here with you."

"No, don't do that, Angel," Crowley was already protesting as he pulled himself into more of a sitting position. "You _love_ the shop. You shouldn't have to be away from it _all _the time."

"Crowley's right. Besides, it'll be easier to keep your head up for information that way," Anathema pointed out, unscrewing her olive jar and popping several of the things into her mouth. "You're going to hear things the rest of us have no hope of hearing in a million years. It's better to keep as many avenues as we can open."

"But...are you going to be all right out here on your own?" he asked his husband. Already, he felt anxious over the whole prospect, but Anathema wasn't wrong in any of her assessments.

"Certainly going to be safer than I have been back in London," Crowley reminded him with a small shrug. "After all, I was fine until I made a stupid decision to step outside the house this morning. And it was _from_ the shop that Gabriel...that he kidnapped us in the first place," he said, only briefly struggling to get the words out this time. Then he was reaching for Aziraphale's hand again, letting his sunglasses slide down to the very tip of his nose as he looked at him overtop of them, golden eyes nothing but sincere. "You and I...we built this place so _she_ would be safe. No reason it can't do for us now."

Aziraphale found his smile growing as he looked at Crowley. Leaning across the little space between them, he pressed his forehead against the demon's. "All right, but I don't want you to hesitate to call me if anything happens. If anything- were to happen to you _this_ time...I don't think I could _bear_ it."

"Actually...if you're worried about him...Newt and I could come and stay for a few weeks," Anathema suggested, again glancing somewhat uncertainly between the two of them.

The angel looked up at this, now taking his turn to look between the young couple with uncertainty. "Oh, we- Anathema, dear, how could we possibly impose so much when you're so close to your own time?"

"No imposition here. I was going to do home birth anyway. My mom's flying in again. It's just- how things are done in my family. I was born at home, too. We can keep an eye on each other and it can serve as a practice run for the pair of you."

"True."

"And you?" Crowley asked, turning the group's attention to Newt. "What do _you_ think about all this?"

A nervous look moved across the former witchfinder private's face as he looked between the three of them, but when he ultimately did speak, it was not to say anything _any_ of them had actually been expecting.

"To be honest...I would feel much more at ease if we _do_ combine our forces- as it were. I don't think Anathema's been spending enough worry on herself and the little one since...what happened with Sandalphon."

"What happened with Sandalphon?" Crowley asked with a sharply raised eyebrow, now looking between Newt and Aziraphale.

"Oh. D- didn't I tell you?" Aziraphale stuttered, well aware that he hadn't.

"No. No, you didn't, Angel."

"Ah...I...well...it all happened so quickly. He didn't leave me much choice, and he might've harmed Anathema or the child if I hadn't-"

"_Angel._"

"I may have...smote him out of existence...with rather extreme prejudice," he admitted quietly, taking another little sip of his tea.

"Oh," was all the demon could seem to articulate for a long moment. "Is _that_ all? Would've liked to have _seen_ that, actually," he confessed a minute later, his voice just as quiet as he actually went about pouring himself a cup of tea.

"Newt, that- it was nothi-"

"_Don't say it was nothing!_" the young man snapped in a more hysterical voice than any of them had ever heard from him. For several minutes, he didn't look at any of them, just sat there, visibly trembling with anger and fear, and Aziraphale was immediately reminded of himself several months ago – when he had been so _desperate_ to find Crowley. When Newt began to properly communicate again, it was to nervously reach a hand across to take Anathema's.

"You- you keep saying it was nothing...but it wasn't. A bloody _angel_ was threatening to _kill you_...to not let our baby be born. That- that's _not nothing_, Anathema."

"Oh," the witch whispered, eyes wide with shock and guilt as she witnessed for the first time just how badly her husband had taken the threat against her. Then, with a soothing murmur, she drew his head down to rest on her shoulder, tangling her fingers in his hair. "It's okay. It's all right."

As the young couple took a moment to reconnect, the older couple looked to each other once more, speaking, as they so often did, without words.

Crowley tilted his head to the side, lifting his eyebrows.

_I __**want**_ _to say that maybe we __**shouldn't**_ _have involved them, but..._

Aziraphale's response was a slow shrug, accompanied by a sigh and a scrunching of the eyebrows.

_...but in for a penny in for a pound, as it were._

The angel caught a glimpse of the demon's eyes above the rims again as they glanced upward.

_Something like that._

The angel inclined his head toward the human couple, emphasizing by flicking a glance toward them as well.

_You can't deny she'd be a help to have near. She has more of a head for strategy than either of us ever will. That and- we really __**do**_ _work better, all together._

Crowley nodded slowly, reticence slowly shifting to acceptance as his expression softened.

_You're not wrong._

"Guys, you're doing it again."

XxX

**Then**

When Anathema Device-Pulsifer swept into the bookshop roughly a month following her wedding in a flurry of excitement, Crowley could honestly say the question that came out of her mouth was _not_ one he had been expecting to hear.

"How would you feel about getting married?"

The serpent stared hard at the witch for several moments, aware of what it was she _meant_, but suddenly wary of the notion, decided to play dumb as he rose from the chair he'd been settled in.

"Well, flattered though I may be, Book Girl, I'm fairly certain you took that option off the table last month. Grown bored with wedded bliss already, have you?"

"Crowley!"

"Anathema!"

"Is that Mrs. Device-Pulsifer I hear?" Aziraphale asked as he approached from another alcove.

"It's her. Not sure if she wants to be called that anymore. The saucy little minx just proposed to me."

"Oh, dear," his angel gasped in put upon shock, glancing between the two of them. "While I can understand your feelings, my girl, I confess I have never been very good at sharing. And seeing as how I have put this wily old serpent in the family way, I'm afraid he is most _definitely_ spoken for," Aziraphale said as he came to wrap an arm around Crowley, hand coming to rest against his belly, currently no different for all of the change that was happening beneath the surface. He hadn't physically felt the little one yet. More it was the growing presence of a new fire within his own. Even so, it was awe-inspiring to witness.

"Oh, ha ha, you're both _so_ funny," Anathema snarked back at them, fixing them both with a very potent stink eye. "But what I _meant_ was what do the two of _you_ think about getting married to _each other?_"

Crowley didn't properly look at Aziraphale when the question was put, but he could feel his lover tense up beside him. But when he moved to pull away, the angel quickly understood that he'd hurt him and pressed a kiss to his ear.

"Not that we wouldn't...and _gladly_, I might add," he said, more likely for Crowley's sake than Anathema's, "but that I don't believe either of us could manage to walk into a church."

"You're being too Abrahamistic here, boys. I'm being a bit more general for what I'm talking about."

"Hmm, an angel and a demon with an Abrahamist world view. Who could've foreseen this?" Crowley snarked back at her.

"And now you're just being a brat," she returned with a sickly sweet smile.

"It's like she doesn't know me at all, Angel," the demon said to his partner.

"Seriously, guys," she said with a small laugh. "I might be able to create a ritual you could use to get off your respective offices' radars."

"Uh-huh, right. So...how does that involve us getting married?" Crowley asked.

"Well, sir, I'm glad you asked that question. To elaborate, you both draw power from your respective etherial planes, yes?"

They glanced at each other briefly before looking back at the witch and answering, "Yes?"

"Good enough. So I've been doing some research in the original Hebrew for angelology and demonology," she began to explain as she pulled a notebook from her satchel.

"Did you know we were ologies?" Crowley muttered to his partner.

"Well, I did have _some_ idea. It's one subject I've never felt compelled to do much reading on," the angel whispered back.

"There's a lot of interesting debate over translations and the like, but the conclusion I've been coming to more and more is that Heaven and Hell are both a lot like computer networks."

"Really?" Aziraphale asked, eyebrow raised at a height Crowley had never imagined it could go to. The angel had never really been able to grasp computers after all and to hear such a comparison made was likely grating on his stores and stores of knowledge.

"Well, I guess you're not wrong," Crowley conceded with a shrug. "They've both definitely become very 'by the numbers' sorts of places."

"Interesting stuff, really. I got the idea from Newt while I was going through charts of the Sephirot."

"Did you two take a vacation for your honeymoon at _all?_" Aziraphale asked with a somewhat beleaguered smile.

"Well...yes, but you know me," she said, her answering smile more than a little guilty. "I need something to focus on. I have to be _doing_ something. So I started in on the research. There's sort of a lot of history to go through."

Having lived through literally all of it, neither could really contest her on the point, so they continued to listen.

"So they're both systems of energy transference, and if all it is is a computer network, you just need to figure out how to disconnect yourselves from it," she explained as she flipped through her notes.

"And you've figured out a way of doing that, have you?" Crowley asked.

"I think so, yes. If you can, y'know, disconnect from the server, as it were, they wouldn't be able to track either of you anymore. You and the baby could go completely off the grid."

Well, the demon would be lying if he said he didn't like the sound of that.

"Again, how does marriage come into all this?" Aziraphale asked.

"If you disconnect from one system, you need to be able to connect to another. You need a different power source."

"Not for nothing, dear girl, but I can't imagine there _is_ such a power source. Something to rival either Heaven _or_ Hell."

Anathema rolled her eyes upward for a moment before muttering. "I'm gonna get shot for this. At the risk of sounding completely saccharin...I think you could draw on your connection to one another."

At that, they both froze, neither quite knowing how to respond. Ultimately, it was Crowley who broke the ensuing silence.

"So...you're saying...that we...that he and I-"

"That the love between the two of you is strong enough to defy Heaven and Hell? Yeah, I'd say there's a halfway decent chance. We're standing on a very _existy_ planet that seems to verify that."

Slowly, the demon turned to look at his lover, feeling an actual _flush_ rising in his cheeks. He swallowed heavily at the sight of a matching blush on Aziraphale's face. How was it they were still this awkward? They'd shagged about six _million_ ways from Sunday. They were having a _kid_ together. Yet they still blushed to look at one another and even _think_ the word love.

"Okay, let me ask you guys something. Stupid question, I think, but you clearly need the For Dummies version. Do you love each other?"

"Unequivocally," Aziraphale answered breathlessly, never having looked away from him.

"Inescapably," was his mumbled response, eyes fixed to the angel's.

"So prove it to the world," Anathema's voice came through to them distantly. "Or- the supernatural world anyway. If you two make a bond with each other, declare your love as binding, I'm pretty sure you could draw your power directly from that."

Crowley trembled inwardly as he looked at Aziraphale. He had spent so long running from this, giving himself all sorts of reasons why he couldn't let himself have it. It was hard to break the instinct of millennia. _So_ hard.

But now...

"Well...I'm up for it...if _you _are," he said quietly, still trying to maintain his typical front of nonchalance.

"Oh," Aziraphale whispered, his expression almost teary as he looked at him. "Darling...absolutely. Nothing would make me happier."

"And you- said we didn't a church for any of this?" Crowley asked the witch, still looking at his angel with a besotted smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

"Really, guys? You were there. What did people do before they started building churches?"

"Well, they just- gathered together in the wilderness, really," Aziraphale answered, still not looking away from him, and the demon felt a new spark of warmth that had nothing to do with the little bugger.

"Then that's what we're gonna do. I'll get everything ready and we'll go from there," she said, smiling as she came to hug them. Aziraphale had no issues, but Crowley still found himself a little awkward on the whole hugging thing, so the witch's embrace was returned with a single uncoordinated arm. When she stepped back from them, her grin was even wider. "Guess this is the part where I say congratulations. Sorry to dash, but there's a lot to do. See you soon."

Then she was gone, leaving the pair of them standing alone at the front of the shop.

"Well, that was...unexpected," Aziraphale said after a long silence.

"Any more unexpected than everything else that's been happening lately?" Crowley pointed out.

The angel inclined his head slightly to the side and shrugged. "Granted. But really it has all become so deliciously domestic, hasn't it. I truly could get used to it."

"With you there, Angel," he returned with a little smile of his own. Before he could say anything more, though, his stomach began to rumble. Hunger was _such_ an odd sensation for him, one he still hadn't gotten used to, even after two months. It was right up there with actually needing a bathroom every now and then and feeling actual exhaustion.

"Oh, my," Aziraphale started with a bright smile. "I suppose it is that time of day. Lunch?"

"Absolutely."

"What shall we do today?"

"Y'know, painfully unusual, this, but I think I want sushi today."

The angel brightened almost exponentially at this, offering his arm to the demon. "I know most women complain of it, but the unusual appetite is something I could also get used to, dearest."

"Let's see if you still feel that way when I'm inhaling strawberries and dill sauce."

XxX

In the innermost depths of his admittedly vivid imagination, where even Crowley had hardly dared to imagine what it might be like to marry Aziraphale, he had to admit that he'd never much considered what an actual ceremony would be like. He'd only ever thought about what he would be _feeling_ at the time...about what it would be like to look into the angel's eyes.

Interestingly enough, almost everything he'd thought had been wrong.

He wasn't nervous, for a start. He had absolutely expected to be nervous. But he just...wasn't. He was where he was supposed to be, even if he hadn't exactly _expected_ to be gathered with a little gaggle of humans out in Hogback Wood.

The Them had all gotten permission from their parents for a campout in the wood. As unlike Newt and Anathema's wedding, they couldn't exactly explain to them that they would be bearing witness to a ceremony that was part wedding and part spell to further defy the systems of power upon which the Earth itself rested.

As one did.

Mostly, the children just seemed happy not to have to dress up this time around, laughing and joking around with each other as Anathema readied the space.

"Really, how many kids can say they've been to a _demon's_ wedding?" Brian pointed out.

"Still none," Pepper fired right back. "Not like we can ever tell anybody about this. They'd think we were all complete nutters."

"Besides, I don't think a lot of demons actually _get_ married," Adam noted in his best sensible voice. But then he turned to Crowley and actually asked, "Do they?"

"Nope," he answered with a stiff shake of his head. "This- ah...this'll be the first."

"No way. First as in...first _ever?_" Brian pressed.

"So we're literally making history here?" Wensleydale asked in awe.

"We are that, yes," Aziraphale agreed as he joined in from whatever conversation he'd been having with Newt, Shadwell, and Tracy. Smiling at his soon-to-be-husband, the angel reached for his hand beneath the pale moon light.

"And here we was thinkin' forty years was a long time," the retired witchfinder said with a chuckle. "Try waitin' six _thousand_ years to be together."

"Can't recommend it," the demon grumbled, squeezing his partner's hand a little tighter.

_But I'd wait six thousand __**more**_ _if I had to...for you...to see you smiling at me..._

"Crowley? Aziraphale? It's time now," Anathema called to them. "Are you ready?"

Smiling weakly at each other one last time, they dropped hands as they turned to face the young witch.

"I believe you will find, Anathema dear, that we have _been_ ready," Aziraphale answered for both of them.

"Oh, it's all just so wonderfully precious," Madam Tracy said with a delighted little sigh.

"Wouldn't doubt that," the witch said with a small smile of her own. "So let's not keep the universe waiting."

Crowley felt it the moment they both stepped into the circle Anathema had prepared before any of them had arrived. They had given her exacting instructions on just what needed to go into the creation of the circle to make sure it was strong enough to handle the energies they would be unleashing inside of it. And only now, feeling the strength of that power, did he feel that they might actually be able to pull this off. Part of him was tempted to reach for Aziraphale's hand, but the other part was aware they couldn't touch now they were inside the bounds of the circle.

Not until the time was right.

"Demon Crowley, Serpent of Eden, and Angel Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate," Anathema addressed them both formally. "The circle has been raised and the songs have been sung. What is your intent tonight?"

"To keep unto the one I love," Aziraphale answered.

When Crowley glanced over at him for a brief, shy moment, part of him wanted to laugh at the sudden seriousness of it all. But at the same time...what in his life had ever been _more_ serious...what since knowing Aziraphale?

"To be married," he answered a little less formally, then with a small, secret smirk, "To break the system."

"Then declare yourselves."

The act of declaring was less about actually saying anything, and more about revealing themselves. So they both released several illusions of their physical natures, unfolding their wings upon the air and letting some of the truths of themselves show through the diminished veneer. Crowley actually heard several gasps from their assembled friends. But most of all, he noticed how Anathema herself was staring at him.

Because it wasn't _him_ she was staring at.

The light from within his own darkened being had been amplified when he'd released his barriers, shining outward to greet the odd little family, and it was at this that the witch was staring. He could see her wanting to say something, but she kept it all in, only letting what she was feeling show in her smile. Ultimately, it was Aziraphale who spoke.

"Behold, you are beautiful, my love," he said softly, echoing his words from the last time they'd been in this wood at night...when it had just been the two of them. He almost wished he could see it himself. It had been so long since he'd carried light within him...

...but even now Anathema's working was starting up, the lines she'd previously drawn into the earth already starting to glow. When he looked back up at Aziraphale, the angel had a very 'let's keep this moving' air as he harriedly produced a ring from one of his pockets. It was a simple gold band with two tiny aquamarine-colored stones in the shape of wings. They were not actual stones, but two chips of light – a tiny portion of the angel's power.

"Crowley...dearest friend, eternal beloved...wily old serpent," Aziraphale said with a fond, teary smile, drawing a little laugh from his throat. "What do I say to you in this moment? What but that I believe my life truly began that day on the walls of Eden. I had not truly _lived_ before that moment. And it was you who brought me to life, my love." Then he kissed the ring once before slipping it on Crowley's finger, being careful not to touch him as he did. Already the air around them was beginning to crackle with power.

Crowley removed his sunglasses before producing his own ring, letting them simply fall away. The ring he offered was cast in silver and black metal and, like Aziraphale's, it was set with two tiny chips of light, golden and glowing like his eyes.

"Angel...Aziraphale..." he said softly, resisting the temptation to reach out and take his hand. This was the only prayer he had spoken since his Fall. "I never thought we'd be here. No matter what our situation, I never thought I could be..._enough_...to stand in front of you like this. I never thought...but, heh...maybe I just think too much. It- started for me, too...that day. It was like waking up...like everything that came before it was just a bad dream...a nightmare I _couldn't_ wake up from. But then there you were...shining above me like a confused little star. Be my star...always...and I'll do my best to be yours," he finished, pressing a lingering kiss to his ring before sliding it onto his partner's finger, still being careful not to touch.

"The vow spoken, the sign given," Anathema said, looking between the two of them for a moment before nodding. "Please join hands."

This they did with gusto, smiling like fools as they took each other's hands. Crowley barely noticed when Anathema produced a length of grey ribbon, binding their hands tightly together before finishing.

"Keep thee, one unto the other, for all of time, for all your days to come, and this bond will serve as a wellspring of strength and care, soft and gentle as silk, but strong and imperishable as love itself. So swear, and in ending begin once more."

The moment Anathema had tied the ribbon off, it began to change, transforming into a ribbon of light and dark fire about their hands, and as it surged with power, the witch took several steps back, removing herself from the circle altogether. The rest was up to them.

Only distantly did Crowley remember being cut from the bonds that had once bound him to Heaven. This was very much the same as that dim flicker of memory. He had resisted his bonds to Hell before, but never pulled away from them entirely...because there had been nowhere else to go...no Heaven, no Hell...just oblivion. But now...now Aziraphale opened to him, shining even more brightly than he'd ever seen as he severed his own bonds to Heaven. With the ribbon of liquid fire flowing about their joined hands, swelling with power, those severed ties began to reconnect, forging a new bond.

Honestly, Crowley could say he almost didn't notice the river of raw power that ebbed and flowed around them, only looking into Aziraphale's bright eyes, his shining self, as that bond solidified between them.

**I love you**, they declared, in voice, in spirit, in energy, in void, in light and in dark. **Ever have I loved you, I love you now, and I shall love you ****always****.**

Then they were kissing, flesh to flesh and soul to soul, and the fire between them was bursting outward like a new star being born. For what seemed, to them, a small eternity, everything was consumed by light.

When Crowley finally coalesced back into himself from the intensity of the union he'd just undergone, he couldn't say how much time had passed. It was still night, or night again. Who could say? He became aware of Aziraphale just across from him, their foreheads pressed together, both of them on their knees, hands still joined.

The demon exhaled loudly, resisting the desire to just collapse outright. Holding a little tighter to his husband, he mumbled against his lips, "Hwoo, bit of a rush, that."

"A _rush?_" Aziraphale returned with a laugh, nuzzling his nose against Crowley's. "That's all you've got? A rush?" he only half-teased before kissing him again.

"I'll write you a sonnet later. Just need to make sure the brain's all present and correct."

"Are you guys all right?" Newt's voice suddenly found its way to them. When they looked up, it was to see him and the others slowly approaching the perimeter of the circle.

"Never better, my boy," Aziraphale called out to him. "Just- taking a moment to catch our breath."

"That was _amazing!_" Anathema was soon gushing. "I mean- the circle could barely contain it. I've never seen anything _like_ it."

"Which means we should probably be clearing the area," Crowley pointed out as he remembered. "We may not be attached anymore, but both sides'll have noticed that much power."

"Right. Time to get gone," the young witch said with a smile. Then she and Newt came forward to hug them. "We'll be seeing you."

"Congratulations to both of you," Tracy said, hugging the pair of them while Shadwell stood back and smiled.

"Great show," Adam spoke for the Them. "Much better than a plane old human wedding."

Then they were all dispersing into the woods, with plans already in place to meet up for a proper celebration. For now, though, there was a rather pressing need to flee the wrath of both realms, and Crowley knew that both he and Aziraphale could sense the approach of that wrath. Grabbing the angel's hand, he whispered to him, "Run," before taking off into the night.

They could've easily miracled away, no longer appearing on either Heaven or Hell's radars, completely free and untraceable. But there was just something about running through the night with his husband – his _husband_ –something wild and free and exhilarating. That new freedom was compounded when he heard Aziraphale laughing beside him.

_They can't stop us now, Angel. Just __**watch**_ _us run!_

XxX

(A/N) Heheh, well...afraid I may have gone a little Doctor Who there at the end, but hey, how can you help it? Nothing much to say here except I hope you enjoyed! See you next month!


	4. There Must Have Been a Moment of Truth

(A/N) Hooo, boy. Hello all. So sorry for the delay. I...actually had my gallbladder out a few weeks ago and I'm still in recovery. I'm basically horrifically behind on all my projects right now, not just this dear little bean. This chapter is a bit softer than some of the others, though, so I certainly hope you find it was worth the wait. Enjoy! :D

**I Knew You'd Be Our Angel**

_Chapter 4: There Must Have Been a Moment of Truth_

**Now**

_She is spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in her._

The vicious potshot had been drifting aimlessly through Crowley's head for weeks now. Anathema Device-Pulsifer had grown so large, the demon found himself constantly checking to make certain she wasn't also carrying twins.

The answer was always a resounding 'no'. Only one baby in this womb right now, thank you very much.

"Rude," he muttered under his breath, glowering pointedly at the large swell of the witch's belly. As often as he checked in on the little thing, he got that sort of sense from her just as often.

"Sorry, what?" Anathema asked, looking up at him from where she was ensconced in the guest bed. At two weeks overdue, her mother had confined her to bedrest, and the young witch had become restless within the first two days of the confinement.

"Nothing much," Crowley returned as he came to sit beside her. "Just checking in again. Your girl's a stubborn one, I'll tell you that right now."

"Good," the witch said with a satisfied nod. "She'll _need_ to be stubborn if she's going to make it in a man's world."

"Well, you're not wrong," the serpent conceded, remembering only too well the treatment he'd received whenever he had been passing as female. Honestly, human men didn't need Satan's help to be complete asses. A goodly portion of them did that on their own.

"Have you...gotten anything else from her?" Anathema asked, her voice dropping to a shade of shyness he was unused to from her.

"Not really, no," he admitted, draping the full length of his still mostly lanky body along the foot of the bed. As he spoke, he let his hand drift to rest over the small swell of his own belly. "Checking in with her's a little different from- checking in with Silver and Gold here."

At three months, they were properly twins now. Two separate wellsprings of light and power contained within his own. For what had felt like a long time, he hadn't been able to distinguish them from each other. His son and daughter had simply been 'they'. Now they were Thing 2 and Thing 1.

"How's that?"

"Well...I guess it could be because these two are more closely aligned with celestial energy and more than human consciousness, or it could just be because they're mine, but I get more distinct thoughts from them. Sometimes I even get complete sentences. What I get from your tenacious little flat-sharer there is more...vague. Just impressions. She adores her mum, but...I get the feeling the fact I check in so much is starting to really annoy her. She'll come when she's good and ready."

When he told her that her daughter loved her, an absolutely besotted look spread across the young witch's normally discerning face. But even with that, she managed a small laugh at the demon's words, her hand rubbing absently at her baby bump. "Flat sharer's right, though. We're getting to a point where I'm wondering if I ought to start charging her rent or something."

Newt and Gabriella had actually begun to low key argue over whether it was time to seek out a proper doctor. For all his experience with Heaven and Hell, the former witchfinder private still would've preferred to put his faith in modern medical science. Gabriella, on the other hand, was constantly insisting that this was to be expected, that no Device had ever arrived where or when they were supposed to. Apparently some of the ancestors had hypothesized that it was some sort of cosmic response to every other aspect of their lives already being heavily prophesied. With everything else laid out neatly for them, damned if these professional descendants weren't going to decide just how and when they came into the world. Anathema herself had come a full month early and had been just fine. And while Newton Pulsifer had never been a confrontational sort, the subject of his wife and daughter tended to draw it out of him; but Anathema could usually talk him down from an argument by reminding him just what sort of catastrophes he could bring about just by accidentally coming into contact with a computer in a hospital.

"Well, like I said, she'll come when she's ready."

"Sure hope so," she said, reaching for the jar of olives that had taken up more or less permanent residence on her nightstand. "I both love and hate this damn jar."

"Are olives the only wonky craving you've had this whole time?" he asked her.

"Well...not the _only_ one. Just the most prominent one," the young witch recounted. "Back around the start of the second trimester, there was a week or so where I was inhaling bowls of pistachio ice cream with crushed Doritos sprinkled on top. Had to be those two, too. She would accept no substitutes. If I even _looked _at a carton of chocolate or a bag of Cheetos, she'd make sure I didn't sleep for days."

Crowley chuckled at that one. "Like I said, tenacious little bugger."

"What about you? Any new cravings this time around?"

"What you've seen's been pretty much the same. Strawberries. Strawberries morning, noon, and night. Sad thing is I was one hundred percent joking the first time I brought up strawberries to Aziraphale. He's probably just happy I'm not eating them with dill sauce."

Anathema's face went through a very odd progression of expressions at this. Her initial reaction was disgust, but then she actually seemed to consider the idea and a look of interest moved in, but this was instantly followed by a look that was all self-disgust.

"No. No! That's where I put my foot down. It's _not_ happening. Sweetheart, you better be born, like, right this second. I am _not_ stooping to _that_."

"Good luck," the demon crooned with a nasty, teasing smirk. "Perhaps we ought to send a note to the shoppers. Tell them to add some dill sauce to the list."

"Don't you dare. Newt will actually do it. Besides, there probably won't be room next to your bushel of strawberries."

"Don't forget your _drum_ of olives," Crowley fired back sweetly. "Actually...wonder what those would taste like together."

"_Stop it. _If we give into demands now, she's never going to be born. Honestly, I think maybe I insisted they go out just to make the labor start. This thing's never going to get going while my husband nervously paces the floor for days on end," she said, practically deflating into the pillows.

"Oh? And here I thought you sent them out to spare me your mother's prying. At least I know where I stand," the demon made a great show of lamenting.

_WAKE UP!_

Crowley immediately snapped straight up on the bed, eyes darting around the room in search of a threat. It took him several panicked moments to realize it was one of the twins he was hearing.

"What? What is it?" Anathema pressed, her own features twisted with worry.

"It- I don't know," he said, still looking around as he got to his feet. It was the boy who had spoken. He knew that much, though he wasn't sure _how_ he knew. Their voices were not so much sound in his head as they were energies. This energy, this knowledge, was the signature he most closely aligned with his son. "He said...'wake up'."

"Well, if he thinks he can-"

The witch's sentence was cut off by a sharp hiss of pain. Once the fit had passed, she glanced from her belly up to Crowley with a flicker of worry in her eyes.

"Okay, that's- uh...that's interesting. Second contraction I've had today...and the first was only fifteen minutes ago."

"Been havin' 'em a couple weeks now, haven't you?" he asked her.

"I have, but it's just been false ones. I guess...if another one shows up in the next ten or fifteen minutes...we'll know," she concluded with a helpless shrug.

Crowley sighed, starting to flit nervously about the space. "Y'know, part of me _really_ wishes this little trick of yours hadn't worked."

"Hey, I was getting desperate here. I _know_ you're not going to tell me you weren't starting to get antsy yourself."

The demon groaned in response, fingers twitching to reach for his phone. "Maybe I should just call them now."

"And I repeat, _don't you dare,_" she fired back with a glare. "You'll jinx it somehow and we'll be stuck waiting even longer. Nobody wants that."

"Hrgh! Okay, fine. You're right," he conceded, running a hand through his hair. Part of him knew how ridiculous it was to give into something so petty as the idea of jinxing in this situation, but the other part was equally aware that they were both at the end of their nerves right now. Anathema from never having gone through this before, and he for being legitimately terrified he couldn't watch this happen without panicking...that he wouldn't be able to help her if she needed it. The next thirteen minutes of waiting were distinctly harder than the last two weeks had been. But sure enough, between the ten and fifteen minute mark, the young witch winced in pain, another little hiss escaping her mouth.

"Yeah, I- you can go ahead and make your calls," she finally conceded. "This is actually happening."

The demon wasted no time in pulling out his phone. Likely, he would've done better to call Newt but, almost without his permission, his fingers automatically went through the motions of calling Aziraphale as he headed out into the main living space.

"Angel," he started just as soon as he heard the line connect, "it's on. It's happening. Anathema's little bugger's coming."

"Well, Mrs. Device should know what to do. She's there now, isn't she?" his husband's voice came over the line.

"Not- exactly, no," Crowley admitted with a nervous swallow.

"What? Why not?" Aziraphale pressed.

"We were out of strawberries. So Anathema sent them out on a shopping trip...because her mum was starting to get on my nerves."

He heard Aziraphale sigh in frustration all the way over in Soho. "Crowley-"

"I know, I know, _I know_. Stupid of me to let her but, to be fair, neither one of us is strictly speaking capable of rational thought right now. That's on the pair of them for listening to her."

"Have you called them yet?"

"No. Sort of just- called you without thinking about it," he admitted.

"Oh...darling..." the angel twittered softly, and Crowley could just picture the smile on his face at the admission. "Flattered though I may be, you really had best let Newton know what's going on. Are- are _you_ all right?" Aziraphale asked him. They had both known this might be an issue for him, given the circumstances the _last_ time he'd been involved in a birth, but...at this point, he was almost _desperate_ not to let it affect him. He didn't want his own traumas to prevent him from being there when their friends needed him.

Still...even so...

"Haven't freaked out yet. That's pretty much all I've got for you."

"Oh...oh, my dear. Would- would you like me to try your phone trick?"

"Nah. You don't need to do that. Just get home your usual way. We'll let you know if anything happens."

"You had better, though I'm almost certain the Bentley might actually _tell_ me if something's wrong with you," Aziraphale scolded him.

"Just might."

"I love you," the angel reminded him. "I'll see you tonight."

"Love you, too," Crowley returned, his voice only somewhat faint as he let go the line. His next step was to call Newt. He got so far as to learn the husband and mother pair were just about to head home, but he didn't get much more from the ex-witchfinder private once he came right out with, "Your wife's having a baby."

That left him with nothing to do but head back to Anathema, whom he actually helped to climb out of the bed. He knew things were done differently in modern hospitals, but for the births he'd attended on back in the day, the first step had been to help things along by simply allowing gravity to do its work. So, supporting her as they walked, the two of them walked slowly around the room, cracking terrible jokes all the while and just generally trying to keep things lighthearted.

"Anathema?" the demon suddenly found himself starting to ask after a time, knowing it would be foolish, but unable to stop the words from coming. "Did...did Aziraphale know about any of the other prophecies?"

"The Final Five?" the witch asked with clear reticence. The subject hadn't been brought up in the weeks the human pair had been staying with them and now probably wasn't the best time for it, but the serpent was about half a step from outright meltdown, so he wanted something besides the present moment to focus on.

"Yup. Those ones."

"Well...he didn't really stick around after seeing the first one. And I don't think you'll much want to see it right now, either. He learned where to find you, but...he also learned he likely wouldn't be in time to save _her_," she admitted, another long hiss escaping her as a fresh contraction seized her body. Crowley waited it out with her before continuing their slow, steady circling.

"Right...and we know the third one now."

"Uh-huh. I can't make much sense of four or five. It's probably better not to look too much into them until _after_ the twins come. But the second one...I'm pretty sure the second one's about you."

Something inside of the demon twinged in pain at hearing that, but he didn't allow his reaction to show on the surface. He just kept up their even pace as they talked.

"What makes you say that?"

"The way Agnes referred to you in the first prophecy...she repeats the phrasing in the second. I'm not- really sure what it could mean, but...it definitely refers to you."

"What is it?" he asked, the words a whisper in his throat, but a roar in his ears. He didn't think he _wanted_ to know, but at the same time, he couldn't _not_ know.

Anathema remained silent for what felt like a long while before answering, and when she did, it was in a heavy, agonized voice. "They saye...the Sonne didst bestride the waves for his Father, but ne'er for faith were such an act accomplished, but for love. Take hart, Fallen Sonne! For when the waters divide thy Love and thee, naught- naugh-_aagh!_"

A tiny cry escaped the witch's mouth this time as she doubled over in pain. But then Crowley felt her freeze in his grip. Then she whispered just one word.

"_Fuck._"

"What? What is it?" he pressed.

"Think- think my water just broke."

"Eooh," he muttered in concern as he glanced down at her feet. It didn't take him long to see the fluid rushing down her ankles, gathering in a puddle at her feet. "Yeah, let's- let's get you lying back down," he said, miracling the slick amniotic fluid away before walking the laboring young woman back to her bed. He didn't trouble her further with their previous line of conversation, the subject already far and away from both of their minds as the labor began in earnest.

The next sound to escape Anathema's lips was a proper scream. And as her grip on Crowley's hand grew painfully tight, as he had feared, memory and nightmare began to sink their venomous fangs into his waking mind.

_...the sounds of his own screams..._

_"Be ready. We'll only get one shot at this."_

_...the abject agony as his very being split open, spilling radiance and blasphemy onto the black of the cosmos..._

_"Give her up. Isn't it better to end this now, rather than prolong her suffering?"_

_"Fuck. You. Angel."_

_...empty...lost- empty...he'd felt so drained without her..._

_"Let me hold her. Let me hold her just __**once!**__"_

_...the devastation in Aziraphale's eyes as he collapsed beside them..._

"NAAAAGHH!"

The scream...that scream was neither distant nor imagined. It was coming from _him_, scraping his throat raw as he clutched his head in his hands, on his knees beside Anathema's bed.

"Crowley!" the young witch cried out, both in pain and worry. "God- _Crowley!_"

"Crowley!"

When he heard the new voice, the demon instinctively lifted a hand, ready to attack whoever it was that came at him. He barely managed to stop himself from lashing out when he saw the utter terror in Newt Device-Pulsifer's eyes, but that look would stay with him. When he was to have his appearance described to him by the horror-struck human several hours later, it was a vision straight from the darkest nightmare – sunglasses shattered to reveal the molten horror in his golden eyes, red hair flaring out from his head like a corona of fire and blood.

And with Aziraphale not there to stop him, he honestly might've killed the human were it not for the brief flicker of recognition somewhere in the back of his mind. Blinking furiously, he drew in on himself, pulling back from the humans.

"I...I..."

"Crowley..." Newt tried again, visibly shaken by what he'd seen, "it...it's all right now."

"I...right. Of course," he mumbled distantly as he got to his feet, summoning himself up a new pair of sunglasses. "I...s- ssssorry," he finished, briefly losing control of the human facade.

"I've got this handled," Gabriella told him gently as she appeared in the doorway. "Why don't you go sit down."

"Sure," he said, shaking his head in an effort to clear it as he moved past the humans, back out into the living area. Falling onto one of the couches, he just sat, staring vaguely at nothing as the daytime hours shifted steadily toward night. He couldn't say how long it was exactly that he sat there before he noticed his angel settling on the couch beside him.

"Are you all right, my love?" Aziraphale asked as he drew him into his arms, and the fact that Crowley didn't resist the embrace in any way was rather telling in and of itself.

"Fine. Lovely. Just about tore Newt's head off," he muttered in defeat. "But that's just how it goes."

"I felt it, you know," his husband said, pressing a tender kiss to the mark on his temple. "When you lost yourself. I almost tried something drastic to get back here. But you did manage to get hold of yourself again."

"You felt it?" the serpent repeated dully, a fresh shiver of guilt moving through him. What his angel must have _felt_... "Did you...could you..._feel it_...what they did to me...to _us_?"

"Not- physically, no," Aziraphale rushed to reassure him. "But I could feel...your distress. I could feel your sorrow and your terror...and I could feel your faith."

"_Faith?_" Crowley bit the word out like an ugly curse. "_What_ faith, Angel? What sort of god allows this sort of behavior from her _emissaries?_"

"Not that sort of faith, beloved," the angel returned, the hollowness of his tone speaking louder than the words themselves. "I meant your faith in _me_...that- no matter what happened...I would find you...I would _save_ you. I tried..._so hard_...to be worthy of that faith."

"You never let me down," the demon returned, turning further into the embrace. "Never will."

He knew Aziraphale didn't agree with him. He could feel that much from him. Even so, the angel responded kindly with, "Let's hope not."

"Heh, _now_ who's lacking faith?" Crowley managed to tease lightly_._

"Well, we'll tally that up as another argument we'll still be having in another hundred years," Aziraphale said, sighing as he pressed his forehead against Crowley's. But the melancholy attitude began to brighten when he lifted his fingers to tangle them in the demon's hair. "You know, we really ought to do something with your hair. I'm sure it's been missing its usual pampering these last few months."

Crowley wasn't at _all_ sure why, but that one drew a small laugh from him. "What? You saying my hair looks bad, Angel?"

"Nothing of the kind, dearest. Merely that I've missed some of the things you used to do with your hair back when it was still this long."

"Well, if you're in want of something to do, be my guest," he invited, lips quirking upward just a little as he shifted on the couch, offering his long red hair to his husband.

"Mm, don't mind if I do," the angel said in his typical tone of twittering excitement as he called a brush to his hand. Crowley couldn't quite help the little sigh of relief that escaped his throat as his husband began to run the brush through his hair. With Aziraphale's gentle, steady fingers working with his locks, it was almost possible to ignore the occasional shouts of pain coming from the guestroom.

He had never had Aziraphale do his hair like this before. Back when it had been long enough to properly style, they hadn't quite been at this stage yet. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was just something soothing about the whole business...about the angel brushing out his frazzled hair and running his fingers through it as he gathered up this strand or that for a braid.

He tried several different things, allowing Crowley to languish pleasantly in his attention, and when he finally declared himself done, he traded the brush for a mirror.

"Here we are. What do you think?" the angel asked as he passed him the mirror.

The demon turned his head from side to side, admiring his husband's work. From what he could see, Aziraphale had gone with a sort of waterfall braid around the back of his head, his hair pulled back from his face, but still allowed to cascade down his back.

"Brilliant," he said with a little smile as he leaned back into the angel, sighing once again as he set the mirror aside, allowing Aziraphale to wrap his arms around him. And as they sat, gradually becoming more and more tangled up in each other, Crowley felt his husband rest a protective hand over his middle, fingers splaying over the tiny swell of their own children.

"We'll get there this time," the angel reassured him. "We _will get there_."

And as Aziraphale ran his hand in gentle circles around the little bump, the demon felt a profound sense of _peace_ was over him. It wasn't just his own he was feeling, but the twins', as well – their reassurance and their love.

_Maybe we really will._

Then, almost as he thought it, a new sound echoed from the guestroom.

A baby crying.

"Ah," Aziraphale started softly, his hold on Crowley tightening just a little. "There she is."

Crowley raised his own hand to Aziraphale's at that, gripping it tightly. For a moment, just a moment, he heard a different cry beneath the little human's plaintive wailing...a cry of terror...

_"Let me hold her..."_

_It's not her,_ he told himself as he collapsed into his husband's embrace. _She's dead. She's gone. This one is alive...and we'll make sure she stays that way._

He knew the fact that he'd begun to relax had relieved Aziraphale immensely, but neither of them had much time to enjoy the brief moment of relief, because the newborn's cries were quickly followed by a knocking at the door.

"Oh," the angel started once more, only half in surprise. "That will be Madam Tracy and the sergeant."

Silently asking permission to go to the door, Aziraphale waited until Crowley had actually nodded his consent for him to let go before he did, going to usher the two humans into their home.

"Sorry we're a bit late," Tracy apologized as the angel led her and Shadwell into the living area. "Gabriella called me and we- well...we'd just been in the middle of-"

"No need to apologize," Aziraphale rushed to reassure her, and Crowley couldn't quite help chuckling at the thought of just what it was that might've been interrupted. "The little one's only just come along. You haven't missed much of anything. Oh, dear. Look at me. Haven't put on anything to eat or drink. I'll get a kettle going."

"Crowley? Aziraphale?"

The pair looked to the sound of Gabriella's voice, seeing her standing in the doorway to the guestroom with a faint smile on her face.

"Would you like to come see your godchild?"

Crowley felt Aziraphale's surprise as surely as his own at the elder witch's statement. For a moment, they glanced at each other, neither quite knowing how to respond.

"Go on, you two," Tracy encouraged them. "I think I know my way around this kitchen well enough by now."

"Right," Aziraphale agreed faintly, coming back to the couch and offering Crowley a hand up, which the demon accepted just as faintly. They then followed Anathema's mother back into their guestroom, beholding what was likely one of the most precious sights either of them had ever seen.

Anathema was laid out on the bed, the top buttons of her nightgown popped open to bare her breasts to the air, and against her breast rested a tiny head covered with dark, fuzzy hair. The little thing's yowling had lessened a great deal, but her father looked like he might take it up himself, standing beside them. He looked both enchanted and almost...lost. As if he weren't certain he was allowed to touch.

"Hey, boys," the new mother greeted, plainly exhausted. "We thought- you might want to meet her...before she starts feeding."

"And you- want us to be godfathers?" Crowley asked, still feeling a little faint at the thought. Not that they'd done a _horrible_ job the first time around, but...yeah.

"Of course," Anathema responded with a tired smile. Newt also smiled when he looked up at them, picking up the explanation when his wife couldn't seem to.

"When you choose godparents for your child, it...it's in the event that something _happens_ to you...that you can't raise them yourself. You choose somebody who can protect them."

"Someone who'd love them...like you would," Anathema said, smiling down at her little girl.

"And that's us?" Aziraphale asked in amazement.

"That's you," the two new parents answered together.

"Well...don't know about our current track record for keeping children safe," Crowley found himself mumbling, but Aziraphale quickly countered the statement with one of his own.

"You know, I can think of several lines of descent from Mesopotamia, fourteenth century Europe, and twentieth century Africa and Germany who would argue differently."

"You _knew_ about that?" the demon hissed sideways at his husband, to which the angel merely shrugged and smiled obliquely.

Anathema laughed at the exchange, shifting the baby girl a bit. "Well, don't be shy. Come say hello."

For a moment, Crowley really did find himself stricken with a kind of shyness as he regarded the tiny baby. Ultimately, Aziraphale had to coax him forward. Somewhere in his own haze of thoughts, he was vaguely aware of the angel asking, "What's her name?"

"Her name is Cassinian Agnes Device-Pulsifer," the witch supplied with a proud smile.

"Cassinian?" Aziraphale repeated quizzically. "Well, that's...certainly novel. I suppose there's a bit of her father in that. And yet...at the same time..."

"'t's _all_ Anathema," Crowley finished, managing to make a bit of a drawl of it. But then, almost before he was aware of it, Cassinian was being passed into his arms. Without even having to think about it, he formed them into a cradle for her, holding the tiny, delicate thing against his chest. "Ah- hello there," he started awkwardly before trying out, "Cass?"

Almost immediately, he got the sense the nickname was _not_ appreciated. He would find something better or he would call her by her _full_ name, thank you very much.

"All right, all right. Message received. Yeah, I'm the one who's been nosing about all month. So hello to you, too, little bleeder," he said, shaking off his earlier attempt at any kind of formality. _This_ was the child he had come to know, and she would have them all know she was _not_ in any way delicate. Had best wash your hands of _that_ notion straight away. No dolls or pink tutus for this little spitfire.

Then, as if she'd understood that _he'd_ understood, she gurgled and bumped her little head against his chest – a queen to her subject.

"Heh, yeah. We're gonna get on great, you'n me."

"Do you think...maybe he was telling _her_ to wake up?"

He looked up at Anathema with a thoughtful frown, recalling the events from several hours ago. Then he tilted his head to the side and shrugged, looking back down at the infant in his arms. "Could've been, yeah."

Crowley couldn't say how long he held the wrinkly little human before she began to fuss again, but when she did, he passed her back to her mother with a small laugh. "Don't think she's gonna put off that first meal any longer."

"Doesn't look like it," Anathema agreed as she laid Cassinian back against her breast, at which point the baby latched onto her and immediately began to nurse.

"Well, we'll just leave you to it," Aziraphale said. "Tracy and her young man are here as well. Shall we send them along, or...?"

"Yes. Definitely. We'll see which one of us passes out first," Anathema said, though, with the very slight nodding of her head, none of them doubted it would be her, rather than her daughter.

When the angel and the demon emerged, though, they were surprised to find that the number of guests in their home had grown just in the little span of time they'd been in with the little family. Deirdre Young had arrived with the Them in tow.

"So sorry for the hour," Adam's mother apologized around the cup of cocoa Madam Tracy had gotten for her. "But Adam got a text from Anathema and this lot just love her so much. They're certainly in need of something to occupy them with the summer holiday on now. Though I do have to say, I don't recall the drive out from Tadfield ever going by quite so _fast_."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Aziraphale said, aiming a pointed _look_ in Adam's direction. The one time Antichrist child shrugged and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Everything's so much faster with this generation. Mother and child are both doing fine, though I don't know how much excitement either can take right now. So had best handle this in small batches. As Tracy and her sergeant arrived first-"

"Oh, don't trouble about us, dear," Tracy shushed him. "Let the children go in. I was just getting a little supper put together. This will give me time to get everything ready."

"All right. Go on in," Deirdre told her son with a tired smile of her own. Plainly motherhood was catching. "But mind you don't tire them out."

"Sure," Adam said with a giddy grin, leading the way into the guestroom. Once the children had all slipped inside, Mrs. Young half-collapsed onto the other couch with the retired witchfinder sergeant.

"I hope Anathema has at least _some_ idea of what she's getting into. It's no easy turn, this."

"Perhaps not, but women go on having babies anyway," the madam said as she puttered about the kitchen.

"They do, that," Crowley said absently, fingers drifting furtively along the hem of his shirt, wanting that small bit of comfort, but also not wanting to draw Deirdre's attention.

"Deirdre, dear, would you like any bacon on your sandwich?" Tracy asked the oblivious mother.

"Oh, don't trouble yourself about me," Deirdre tried to argue. "We really ought to be heading home before it gets _too_ late."

"I won't hear any such talk," Aziraphale scolded her, moving to assist Tracy while Crowley returned to the couch. "You all just arrived. We have plenty of room for everyone to stay the night."

Mrs. Young laughed at that one. "Honestly, how you two fit so many people in this little cottage escapes me. It's some kind of miracle."

"It really is," Crowley couldn't quite help putting in.

"Anthony, what is that you've done with your hair?" Tracy asked, glancing over from the little kitchen. "I didn't get a chance to ask before."

"Waterfall braid," the demon answered, looking more toward Aziraphale as he spoke. "We needed a distraction earlier. Suppose the husband was getting tired of seeing it just hanging in knots."

"Well, it's lovely. It's so nice to see you doing something with it."

Crowley felt a small smile begin to twist the corners of his own mouth as he watched the beaming smile spread across Aziraphale's face.

"Yeah," he said softly, feeling the same beaming joy and warmth from within himself. "It was time for a change."

XxX

**Then**

"Well, it finally happened."

Aziraphale sighed into the phone in his hand. He supposed he had known it would have to happen at some point. Perhaps he was just wondering why they had taken this long. "Are you at the flat now?"

"Yup. Wankers completely trashed the place."

"I- just wait for me, will you? Don't go anywhere. I'll be there soon. The two of _you_ are all right, yes?" the angel pressed, his grip on the old phone briefly tightening.

"Course. Weren't even anywhere nearby. Honestly, this damage could even be a few days old. I'll do some digging."

"Just- don't do anything foolish," he reiterated. "I'm on my way."

Aziraphale had the shop closed almost the moment he'd hung up the phone. He was on his way to the flat inside of five minutes. Things had been...interesting...in the month since their wedding. And that really was to say the least.

Emissaries from both sides had been trying to get a hold of both of them in the weeks since their open defiance of the world order. Trying to get a hold of them, trying to intimidate them, trying to _kill_ them, even. Aziraphale supposed that, once, such a notion might have scared him. Now he found he was just angry – angered at the thought of these small timers even _daring_ to lift a feather against his family. Not that that anger moved him to open warfare, mind, but it still rather made him long for the old flaming sword every now and then.

Heaven, at the very least, knew about the baby. The Guf Records, an etherial accounting of each soul conceived on Earth, were kept there. So it was simply a matter of course that they knew. What the renegade pair was uncertain of was just how much Hell knew about the situation. As evidenced by the sham that had been their trials, there was a degree of cooperation between the two planes, but they didn't know exactly what that degree was. So until such a time as they had a better handle on the situation, both above and below, it was better to just avoid both realms. This they did by never staying in either of their places for long or in a predictable pattern. They'd been preparing for another stint at the Mayfair flat, but this newest development rather called into question whether that was still a safe option.

Aziraphale arrived at the flat to find Crowley amidst the ruins of his little garden, miracling away smeared dirt and broken pots bit by bit, getting things back in their proper position.

"Find anything?" the angel asked his husband, beginning to help with the cleanup. Given the mess he'd walked through to get back here, he didn't see how Crowley could have.

"The only thing I've found here today is something I already knew. Demons are complete pricks," he growled. "But did I figure out what they were looking for? No. Part of me's inclined to think they're just trying to scare us. Something's happening, Heaven won't talk, so they're just trying to bully us. Obviously they _wanted_ us to know they'd been here," he said, gesturing around at the mess, which would have been only too easy to erase in the event Hell had wanted to throw them off.

"Well, that does sound like them. Sounds like _all_ of them, really. Although...I suppose another possibility is that they're trying to find a _reason _for the trial," the angel speculated, retrieving the two pieces of the throne from Crowley's desk and miracling them back into one.

"Reason?" his husband repeated in bemusement. "Since when do they need a _reason_ to do anything?"

"Not that they required one for that. More I meant...a reason _why_. Why it happened the way it happened. _Why_ they failed to execute us."

"Okay, _that_ I'll buy," Crowley grumbled, but then he stopped stark still in the middle of the room, a hand drifting to his middle. "Oh..."

"What is it?" Aziraphale asked, taking a few steps toward him. "Is everything all right?"

"I- I think...that was her...kicking."

"_Oh!_" the angel then mirrored his partner's initial eloquent statement, moving the rest of the way to him. "I- may I-"

Crowley's only response was to reach for his hand, drawing it in next to his on his belly. Even partway through the fourth month, he didn't have all that much of a bump, but it was there if you knew what you were looking at. And there, through the layers of the demon's clothing, beneath the human layer of him, Aziraphale felt it – the tiny flutter of movement.

"That's...oh, my..."

The little one hadn't moved all that much so far, which was unusual according to all the reading he'd done. But then there wasn't exactly anything _usual_ about this pregnancy to begin with. His mind was just about to go off on some sort of not entirely related tangent when it registered what it was that Crowley had actually said.

"Her?" he repeated, amazed.

Crowley looked away from him, the faintest tinge of a blush painting his cheeks beneath his glasses. "It- yeah. I mean, I'm...not sure she's completely decided one way or the other, but..._she..._feels right."

"That's...oh, my _dear_..." was all he could manage to give voice to. Unable to properly express what he was feeling, he drew the demon's face back toward him, drawing him into a kiss, which he melted into all too gladly.

_Darling...this...you...__**she**__...we- we're going to have a daughter..._

Neither of them stepped back from the other when they broke the kiss. They remained like that, foreheads pressed together as they both smiled like fools.

"Dearest," Aziraphale started in, finally knowing what it was he needed to say, "we can't keep doing this."

"What- what do you mean?"

"I mean they know where we both live. We can't keep risking her safety like this, flitting between the two and _hoping_ we'll be lucky."

"So...what are you thinking then?" Crowley asked him, taking a step back to look him properly in the face.

"I'm thinking that, because they can't trace us anymore, we ought to use that to our advantage."

"You mean like- getting a new place together?" he pressed, eyebrows knitting together.

"Something of that nature, yes."

"But- you shouldn't have to give up the shop, Angel. You _love_ the shop," his husband tried to argue.

"Oh! Oh, I'm not saying _that_, darling. Far from it. In fact, it seems to me the more places we maintain, the better off we will be. Anything we can do to confound them, really."

The demon considered this a long moment before beginning to nod. "Definitely makes sense."

"Besides, on- on a less practical level...more a personal one...it would be nice to have a place that's more _ours_. After all, the- the flat is yours and the bookshop is mine. Oughtn't we to create a space that's more yours _and_ mine?" he asked, feeling a similar blush rise in his own face.

"No arguments here. Plus we also oughta...be thinking about space for her," Crowley pointed out, his own blush reigniting with a vengeance. "Like...y'know...nursery space."

"Oh, yes, _yes,_" the angel agreed with excitement, actually feeling the strain in his cheeks from how brightly he was smiling. "I wonder that we hadn't thought of that before."

"Well...I'd be lying if I said I _hadn't_ thought of it. Just...from time to time, though," Crowley admitted. "Nothing really concrete. I know _you'll_ want this little rugrat to have her own library."

"And what's wrong with that? I'd like to know," Aziraphale started in only partly serious indignance. "Any child of ours must have unencumbered access to the full sum of human and etheric knowledge."

Crowley quirked an eyebrow at him in mild rebuke, but his lips still twisted in a smile. "You're not reading Chaucer and Milton to our newborn, Angel."

"Tish tosh, dearest. Don't be silly," Aziraphale responded with a casual brush of his hand. "If anything, it will be Aristotle and de Troyes."

The angel caught a glimpse of his husband rolling his eyes just at the rims of his sunglasses. "Well, can't argue with de Troyes, but seriously? You're _still_ hung up on that bastard? I'll give him logic, but he should've left poetics well enough alone."

"Agree to disagree," the angel returned primly.

"Well, while you wax philosophic, I believe your daughter's hungry, so I'm going to feed her," the demon snapped in a teasing voice before heading toward the kitchen, a place that had previously served no purpose in his flat, but that had been taking center stage more and more to satisfy Crowley's growing need for food.

Aziraphale, meanwhile, would have to say he'd be ashamed to admit he hadn't much thought about a nursery for their little one. Whenever he daydreamed, he tended to just picture Crowley walking about his little garden room with a swaddled bundle in his arms, singing quietly as he rocked it (because his husband had a _wonderful_ voice, despite what he wanted the rest of the world to believe).

But...a proper nursery? What might that consist of? A cradle, obviously, plus a rocking chair. A bookcase, naturally. A changing table? Would they need one? After all, they didn't yet know if their daughter was going to be like other babies in that regard. Probably best just to be prepared. Maybe they ought to-

"Ach! Bloody Heaven. Angel!" Crowley's voice was suddenly lancing back into his thoughts.

"What? What is it?" Aziraphale asked, uncertain if he needed to panic as he headed toward the kitchen himself.

"Those bleeders went through my fridge, too. There's strawberry everywhere. Why would they even need to-"

"Because they're _demons_," the angel pointed out pragmatically as he entered the room, seeing the sticky red mess that had once been the interior of a refrigerator. "Somehow I very much doubt anything was actually consumed."

"Yeah. Probably right," his husband conceded with a long-suffering sigh.

Aziraphale shook his head as he stepped up to the refrigerator, laying a hand on it and restoring it to rights. Even so, the sight of the Great Strawberry Massacre of 2019 had rather put both of them off of anything currently in the fridge.

"Well...lunch?" the angel asked after a time, offering an arm to his demon.

"Absolutely," Crowley agreed, quickly falling in with him.

"What's she feeling like today?"

"Anything with curry on it. Though we _do_ have to track down some chocolate-dipped strawberries afterward."

"Divine."

XxX

It took several weeks and more than a few miracles, but at the end of it all, Crowley and Aziraphale found themselves standing in front of a cottage in the South Downs – a quaint little thing just far enough away from any of the resort towns or any of the small villages.

It was a place that would be perfect for raising a little half angel, half demon who had no earthly idea how any abilities she may or may not have might work. Their little girl could test out her strength and make as many mistakes as she needed to without the intrusive gaze of people who could never truly understand what she was.

In some strange way, the cottage was both a place of retirement and a place to begin anew. It was something of a reward for their six thousand years of service on this planet, but also a place to start the next stage of their lives.

There was plenty of gardening space surrounding the little home. Aziraphale had seen to that on his husband's behalf. And he couldn't pretend not to see the way the demon looked around appreciatively as they headed through the front gate.

"Perfect place to start a little green army, this," Crowley said with a devilish smirk.

"Yes, I thought you would approve," Aziraphale said as he led the way through the front door. "Though I do hope you've no plans to conquer the world with that army."

"Well, that'll depend on little bean here," he answered, patting the bump beneath his clothing. Even entering the fifth month, it still wasn't very big, but they could both sense just how much she was growing where she existed in the etherial plane. Hers was a fire unlike anything either of them had ever seen before. And that was, of course, saying something. "If I've finally got myself a little captain in this one, General Anthony J. Crowley's just going to have to march on the world and make it green again. Nobody else is gonna do it."

"Well...you _might_ not be wrong about that," the angel said, feeling a small twinge of sorrow for what the humans were doing to their own planet without even the literal Apocalypse to worry on. "Though the notion will please Adam and Anathema, I have little doubt."

"True."

The main floor of the cottage was a largely open design, with the main living area and the kitchen not all that different from one another, really only divided from each other by a kitchen table. Further on, there was closet space and a guestroom with a little bathroom attached, more for the sake of any human guests they might have. Apart from the little staircase that led up to the loft, there was one other room, which Aziraphale hadn't had much of a hand in. And when he saw what was inside, he immediately understood why Crowley had kept it for a surprise.

"Oh," the angel breathed as he stepped into the little office, complete with a desk and more bookshelf space than one would ever think could possibly fit into such a little space.

"Thought you could use a little book space of your own," his husband said with a casual shrug when Aziraphale turned to him, beaming.

"And it was a good thought, my dear. Thank you," he said, drawing the serpent into a lingering kiss. They might've kept at it were it not for the last few surprises the cottage still had for them.

Theres were two rooms in the upper loft of their new home. The first being their bedroom, decorated more to Crowley's tastes, as it was largely his domain. Though Aziraphale imagined he would be seeing a good deal more of it once his husband was no longer expecting.

The second was the nursery.

"Yellow, Angel?" Crowley asked as he looked around the space, his tone an odd mix of emotions. It wasn't quite incredulity. More like he was going for his typical casual disdain and falling short...falling into quiet amazement.

"You did mention you weren't certain she'd settled, so I didn't want to go with the typical blue or pink. Yellow's a nice color. It's the color of _your_ eyes, after all."

"My eyes are _gold_, thank you very much," was the demon's reply as he moved further into the room, but despite the curt words, Aziraphale could still sense the fluttering of emotion from him at the comparison.

What he'd been able to sense from his husband in the past month had been...uneven, at best. The moments of sensing tended to only be when the emotion was particularly strong. To feel even that flicker from him told Aziraphale just how deeply this little nursery had moved him. The angel couldn't deny the tightening in his own throat as he watched Crowley walk to the crib, running a hand along the white wood.

"Do you think...she'll like it?" the demon asked softly, reaching down into the crib to pick up the little star and moon patterned blanket lying there.

"I think she will _adore_ it," he said as he came to stand beside his husband, pressing a kiss to the serpent's cheek as he draped his arms around him. It was then that he noticed Crowley's sunglasses had disappeared since they'd entered the room. He hadn't seen him remove them, so they'd simply...vanished.

"What...what about..._me?_"

"What about you?" Aziraphale asked, though he had a feeling he knew what his partner meant.

"Will she like me?" the demon asked in an almost helpless voice as he lifted the blanket in his hands. "Or is it bad that this little thing's gonna be stuck with a demon for a dad. Satan, I just...I _really_ don't want to mess her up."

"She will love you," the angel reassured his husband in a firm voice as he rested his head against his. "She will love you because you are her father and you will love her more than anything in the world. What you are and what she is will have nothing to do with it."

At these words, the angel felt an outpouring of wonder and warmth from the demon as he stilled in his arms. Then, from beneath that, a beautiful welling of pure love.

"Crowley?" he whispered, somewhat thunderstruck in the wave of the pure emotions. Some of it was the demon, but...

"I...I think she loves us," the serpent whispered back.

"_Oh,_" he practically sang in response, embracing his little family for all he was worth.

This. This moment. He knew. If ever he found himself doubting _anything_ that had come before it, and whatever might come after it, he would always be able to come back to this moment and _know_ that this was right.

That he and Crowley...that they...that she..._all_ of them...it was worth it. This was worth any pain he could ever experience.

XxX

(A/N) Well, my dears, I hope you enjoyed the soft, because next chapter...next chapter is where it starts getting rough.


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